#idk what every other ace person is doing but even when i was sex repulsed i still thought about it

[freakcliff]

people are always asking things like "what are ace people spending all their time doing if not thinking about sex" and the answer is that i am in fact thinking about sex just intellectually. its a really fascinating topic tbh

[barbierpt]

i'm reading ur blog like the morning paper and i'm just gonna take a moment to address that anon you got about being ace and sex-repulsed; i am also ace and sex-repulsed, but there is absolutely nothing forcing anyone to read other people's smut on the dash, especially if it's under a read more. you have to make a DELIBERATE choice to read through a reply or click the "read more" button—if you don't want to see it, literally all you have to do is scroll past and move on OR block the nsfw tag, because most people do tag their posts appropriately. it is very much a personal responsibility to not engage with things online that are upsetting to you, and if you choose to do so anyway, that's 100% nobody else's fault but your own. like what are you doing?? meticulously reading every smut thread you come across even though you're repulsed and then getting upset at the people who wrote it???? and if it goes deeper than that and just the mere thought of raunchy text being on your dash makes you uneasy even when it's hidden and you're not reading it, that sounds like a particularly extreme trigger that you cannot realistically expect people to cater to. if a group doesn't have smut banned, you're seriously wasting your time trying to ask them to change their rules and ban it for your specific comfort 😭

reading my blog like the morning paper askjagdak 😂 thank YOU anon for saying exactly what i was thinking on that but didn't quite know how to put into words at the time. all of this is 100% true. most people here are considerate enough to tag and hide smut threads under read mores so if you're taking the time to read it... and then getting upset... that's on you. also as an admin myself, i'm not personally a fan of those members that come into the group and ask me to change the rules for their comfort. you joined knowing what you came into like...? idk what to tell you.

[thoughtfulpaperback]

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME ....

Excuse the all caps, I'm not meaning to shout or depress anyone, but for me sometimes being ace feels like being a little broken

Why? Not because of the things that others might assume.

I feel like I can do most "normal" things okay.

My friend wants to talk about relationships or sex. "PFFT! No problem!" I am not uncomfortable with it.

I may not understand all the feelings she has in terms of craving sex or even shame associated with sex, but I'm always happy and curious to hear her thoughts.

But sometimes people (friends and family) just say something that makes me feel like I'm wrong or something-at least-is wrong.

Sometimes it's the standards

"You'll change your mind when you meet the right person!"

"You just have to meet the right person."

"You haven't really tried dating or relationships, so you won't really know until you do."

"Are you a lesbian and you just have a lot of shame around that?"

"You probably have a lot of religious shame around sex and your body."

All of which drive me crazy and have me like ....

But sometimes my rational brain takes in their arguably rational suggestions and that's what makes me feel like I am somehow wrong.

In this particularly often occurring and triggering situation. My friend thinks that I need to actually have sex to determine whether or not I'm interested in it.

It's bull crap! I know it is, but where she always gets me is when I start to justify myself and explain that even if I was interested in exploring whether or not the physical act of sex is something that I'd enjoy, I could personally never feel good about using someone or giving false hope.

I don't want to be with someone I don't know or trust just to get off to see I'd like it.

I do not want to date and then try it and end up giving someone false hope that I'd every want to do it ever again or that they somehow are the reason I'm not into it (if I'm not into).

I don't like the idea of having to sleep with multiple different types of people like the Goldilocks of sex to figure out if there is a just right situation or person for me.

The thought of any of those scenarios makes me feel bad. And I'm not talking about bad as in having compassion for the others bad. I mean, it makes that part under-my-sternum- but-not-quite-my-stomach feel like it's tightening and burning at the same time.

I hate that feeling.

But what I hate even more is that in theory her argument makes sense. If I'm not sex repulsed, which I am not. I feel more repulsed by the idea of emotional and physical intimacy and people than by the act of sex.

Then, it would make sense to indulge when I have the passing curiosity with someone who consents and 100% knows the situation than to pass on one (possibly enjoyable) aspect of the human experience.

....but I still don't like the idea and that is where this gets me everytime.

Because rationally I know I'm not wrong. I know that my feelings are valid and I don't have to try something that I am not comfortable with to decide if I'm actually comfortable with it or not.

I know that curiosity ≠ desire actual interest in engaging.

I know that I don't need anyone or anything to validate my sexuality or lack of interest in actually being with someone physically.

But idk...sometimes I end up feeling like I'm the one who is not being rational/reasonable and it would be easier just to do what everyone says because it probably won't do any harm.

And after that I just feel bad. Like down. Not the sternum/stomach bad.

[cornrowsandcornbread]

i’ve suspected i was asexual since last year when i realized that people literally got horny looking at strangers. i was so shocked! i have formally participated in saying comments about celebs like “oouuu they could get it (which i don’t do now)” because i just assumed everyone was using it to exaggerate how fine/beautiful someone was, not cuz they literally wanted to sex them up! when i realized that i actually felt kinda violated bc i was like “what if someone i don’t know has felt that way about me?” lol. and i’m alloromantic so i’ve had a few crushes in my life, and even then i was never sexually attracted to them. but bc i have an interest in having sex, and i watch “adult films,” (once again, i’ve never been attracted to the people in them. matta fact, most of the time i think they’re quite unattractive lmao) and i read explicit stories from time to time, i thought i couldn’t be asexual.

it’s bc i’ve always thought asexuality = sex repulsion, virgin, complete distaste for sex, sexual activities, and sexual conversations. and for many aces, that is what it means, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. tbh, in this very hypersexualized world we live in, i truly love that for y’all. but while that is what asexuality means for some, that’s not what it means for all. learning about the spectrum of asexuality “sex repulsion -> sex neutrality -> sex positivity/favorable” and learning that sexual attraction ≠ sexual action has been a great help. you could truly have sex with 1000 people in your life time, you could genuinely enjoy all 1000 sexual… sessions (idk how else to word it lmao), but if you were sexually attracted to none of your sexual partners, you’re just as asexual as anyone else. and that’s been very validating to learn. the definition of asexuality is little to no sexual attraction. like that’s it, there’s nothing more to it. another thing that kept me from realizing i was asexual is it always seemed like weirdo yt people shit. but black asexuals exist. and it’s not yt people shit, i mean last time i checked i was a nigga! the last thing is that i still like to do “sexual/sensual” things. like, one thing about me? i’m gon twerk! and i wanna be a majorette, a style of african american dance that can be pretty sensual, and ik when i finally get my dream wardrobe it’s gonna be A LOT of shirts that show lots of cleavage, and other things of that nature. like i thought that asexuality kinda meant that you don’t wanna show off your body or that you don’t like feeling sexy yk? or that you’re just an all round shy person but that’s not true at all. asexuality, like every sexual orientation, is not as strict as i convinced myself it was. idk i feel good right now knowing this about myself. and this is my only outlet for the time being. not that i can’t tell my family, i truly think they would support me and/or not really gaf tbh lmao. especially my sister who i suspect may also be on the ace spectrum by our conversations (she may not be full on ace but i think she’s somewhere on there), but i just don’t even know how to start the conversation so i haven’t. seems like something that’s a big deal to me but wouldn’t be a big deal to other people yk idk i’m just talking atp. anyways, NIGGA ACES EXIST! I AM ASEXUAL. I’M A SEX FAVORABLE ASEXUAL. I FEEL GOOD ABOUT THIS 👍🏽. THAT IS ALL

[scampfire]

Idk if my answers will contribute to anything, but this questionnaire seems fun so let's go

1. How do you identify?

I identify with the labels aromantic, alloaro, demisexual, greyplatonic/aplspec

2. How do you feel about the following

Romance: repulsed

Touching: I don't like body contact in general, but that's my autism, it has nothing to do with me being aspec

Hugging: that's okay as long as I'm asked first

Kissing: not in the face/ on the lips. Everything else is okay (except my chest. Trans guy struggle)

Sex: great I think. Ask me again when I'm not a virgin anymore

Love: I kinda relate to loveless people. I don't feel love for anyone, not romantic or platonic or queer platonic or anything else. But I love the whole world and nature and my fandoms and everything so much that I don't label myself as loveless.

Queer platonic relationships: awesome concept. But I dislike that (some) aro people now seem to have replaced romantic relationships with queer platonic relationships in an amatonormative way. That they praise qprs so much and think every aro needs one or wants one. Just recycled amatonormativty

A significant other: don't need one. It's fine when other people find joy in it, just not for me

One night stands: valid as heck. Nothing wrong with them. I fight everyone who says otherwise

Porn (video): my demi ass doesn't like naked people I don't know, so not for me. But I'm not against them, consume them if you want, or not when it's not your thing. You can do whatever you want forever

Smut (written): smut is awesome. It's not easy to write good smut, but when you have the required skill you're basically a god

Dates/Dating: I don't date. And I don't understand the difference between dating and just hanging out. Someone explain to me please

3. What is one thing most people misunderstand about your identity?

I don't talk about my identities that often. But you can't look at my labels and know what's going on inside me, so I guess that could confuse people. Like, I'm aplspec but still want a friend with benefits. Technically I'm demi, but I still find people attractive after a few hours of knowing them, so I consider myself also alloaro. I'm aromantic but Love shipping. So I'm more complex than you'd think I guess

4. Have you encountered aphobia in your life?

I'd say no, but I encountered amatonormativity so much. Every person I'm out to supports me, but the amatonormative brain rot is real. So a person can support me, but still say it's valid that another person destroyed our plan to meet because she'll meet her girlfriend and romantic relationships are more important than platonic relationships. Why does relationship hierarchy even exist anymore

5. Anything else you'd like to add on the topic?

No hate against aces, but I'm tired that they overshadow every other aspec identity. It sucks that the aro tag is unusable when you don't want to consume ace content. It sucks that books about the queer community have whole paragraphs or even pages about being ace, but aros just get a few sentences. And it's often explained in detail that aces don't have to be aro, but we aros just get something like "oh and sometimes aros aren't ace" and then nothing's mentioned about alloaros ever again. Aces and aroaces are totally valid, and they deserve their communities and own spaces, but I just want a space for aros to exist without having to think or talk about asexuality. A space that's purely focused about being aromantic, and nothing else. I'm not even angry anymore, just so tired

The Aspec Questionaire

Aspec is such a vast category and one some folks (especially allo folks) tend to treat like a monolith. So I thought it’d be good to do a little questionnaire to demonstrate.

(Skip anything you don’t want to answer.)

1. How do you identify?

2. How do you feel about the following, one word answers are fine if you want:

- - Romance

- - Touching

- - Hugging

- - Kissing

- - Sex

- - Love

- - Queer Platonic Relationships

- - A Significant Other

- - One Night Stands

- - Porn (Video)

- - Smut (Written)

- - Dates/Dating

3. What is the thing you think most people misunderstand about your identity?

4. Have you encountered aphobia in your life?

5. Anything else you’d like to add on the topic?

[incorrect-dishonored-quotes]

so i was going through some of the daud posts here and sometimes you ship him with ppl??? idk if you know this but that makes ace ppl really uncomfortable so if you could not do that thanks.

[For context, Daud is canonly asexual.]

Listen I'm ace. And rather a stereotype at that. I'm introverted, like space and cake, and I'm sex-repulsed. But not every asexual are these things.

Back in my day, circa 5 years ago, Asexuality was a spectrum, and news flash, it still is. The thing that I've noticed in the ace community is exactly what you're talking about. You're excluding people in your own damn community. There is one ace blog I still follow because of this. All the others started to slowly gatekeep, and although I'm still allowed in bc by sex drive is at a 0%, I do not count myself as part of their "community" because that's not what it is anymore. It's a bunch of gatekeepers with 0% sex drive, calling their old community members allosexuals (Those who experience the "traditional" type of sexual attraction.)

My advice? Follow other ace tags that are on the other sides of the spectrum. Look at other social media sites. Tumblr can really be a trash bin of unneeded discourse, and isn't always a great place for these things. Like, there are people on this site where I KNOW for a fact, they're gonna have a stroke if they go to a real pride bc they saw a masc person in a lesbian flag shirt. The "Pride" side of tumblr is slowly becoming narrow-minded and fighting with itself. But, what else did you expect when the terfs settle here and try the run the place?

As for the spectrum, here are the big players:

Asexual: An umbrella term, but also refers to those who experience no sexual attraction.

Gray-Asexual: Refers to those who feel very little sexual attraction.

Demisexual: Those who only feel sexual attraction after they've created a close bond to someone. This could vary from a couple of weeks, to months, or over a year.

Other Terms:

Aromantic: An umbrella term separate from Asexuality, but often overlaps in many. Refers to people who experience little to no romantic attraction on a spectrum similar to Asexuality. Common labels are Aromantic, Gray-Aromantic, and Demiromantic.

Alloromantic: Those who feel the "traditional" type of romantic attraction.

Sex Repulsed: Refers to people that are repulsed by the thought of engaging in sex with anyone. Asexuals are not the only ones that can be sex repulsed.

Sex Neutral: Refers to those that do not have a preference of weather or not sex is part of the relationship. This may or may not come with extra boundaries, such as how frequent sex is part of the relationship. Asexuals are not the only ones that can be sex neutral.

Sex Preferable: Refers to people that prefer to have sex as part of the relationship. Fun fact, humans are so dumb, evolution or god had to make sex pleasurable for us to reproduce. There are also many who believe that sex is way symbol of trust, vulnerability, and unity. Like any ideals, it is up to interpretation, so do not press these beliefs onto others.

Queer-Platonic Relationship (QPR): Refers to a deep-rooted, committed, platonic relationship. Though they are common in the aro and ace communities, anyone can be part of a QPR.

So what does this all mean for shipping ace characters? Is this an excuse for fanfiction? No! And even if it is, who the fuck cares? Demisexuals, gray-aces, sex nuetral aces, sex preferable aces, and alloromantic aces exist in real life, and are just a part of the Asexual Spectrum as a 0% sexual attraction, sex-repulsed ace like myself! Ace characters being in relationships do not erase their sexuality, just as it wouldn't in real life. Like I said, one day, you will go to pride and you will either understand or have a stroke. I wouldn't recommend the stroke, my grandfather had one, so I urge you to accept diversity in the LGBT+ community.

As for Daud specifically, it doesn't say in lore where he lands on the spectrum, so hc away. Throw a couple of terms in there. Be creative. Personally, I hc him as sex-repulsed and demiromantic. As a little bonus, I hc Corvo as demisexual, and even hinted to it in that CurnCrow fic I did a while back.

Happy Pride!

[izzyliker]

hey - this is one of the mods of the bi jon project. we don't actually dislike or disagree with pan jon at all, we just want to make a project focused on and celebrating bisexuality. our carrd is a bit rambling, but frankly we were trying our best/overcompensating to try and make sure people didn't misunderstand us and do - well, this. our intentions are good, and it's really kind of disenheartening to see all the hate we've gotten for what was meant to be a positive project. (1)

you're under no obligation to answer these, but i saw some of your posts in the tag and felt like reaching out because you did give us even the tiniest bit of slack in good faith. honestly, if you have any advice about what in our carrd is so overwhelmingly bad, we'd be happy to hear it. we've been trying to respond to the overwhelming amount of criticism we've got in a positive way, and take peoples' suggestions. (2)

as for why 'no anti-antis' was at the bottom of our rules list, it's legitimately bc we were trying so hard to be preventative about this negativity that we forgot to add it when we first posted the blog, and just remembered later. again, you're under no obligation to answer these, i just feel like no one's really actually letting us defend ourselves/are taking things in as bad faith a way as possible. (3)

im not exactly sure how the posts showed up in the tag bc ive been very purposefully not tagging them, also ive blocked all of you back (not sure why you blocked me if you actually want feedback, so it seems more like you just want free positive pr and not actual feedback) so its unlikely youll see whatever it is that i reply to this but whatever. 

the issues have all been repeatedly brought up to you so i dont really see how me repeating all of them once again could help. when i last looked at the cardd the things that stood out immediately included. 

pitting ace & bi identities and people against each other REPEATEDLY,  

starting off with a guilt trippy tone and maintaining it throughout (in my experience this is the #1 best way to receive backlash because people do not want to participate in events where you feel like youre being guilted into it, which going into scrutinizing detail over there not being enough content and passing judgement onto authors or artists over it is something that comes across as guilt trippy.),

repeatedly equating asexuality with sex repulsion (not to get into the misleading information about modteam aspec identity breakdowns, since you claimed that 3/4 of the team are aspec, which is technically correct, but what you didnt say was that only one is acespec. surely you know that [allosexual] aro and [alloromantic] ace are not interchangeable) and calling using biromantic over bisexual a “misunderstanding” of the identity as if how to define romantic vs sexual attraction (how to divide, if or if not to divide, use interchangeably different labels) isnt a deeply personal choice ace people who experience romantic attraction make, 

claiming that bisexual jon is canon (he isn’t. this is why people are suspicious of anti-other mspec identities sentiments. which theyre right, if youll be so kind as to stick around til the last paragraph) and repeatedly implying that the reason there isnt “enough” content centering bi jon because the aces are simply unable to not fixate on his asexuality (again, pitting identities against each other),

making the banned ship list way needlessly confusing and including ships that dont even include jon to it, which simply comes across as some kind of a list of bad ships, idk. a way to bypass this would simply be to say “we are looking for portrayals of healthy relationships!” and that couldve just been it. if you felt that that wouldnt exclude specific ships (eg. jondaisy that a lot of people write as a relationship between trauma survivors who have done very bad things trying to get better and learning to trust each other) it is possible to simply say “the modteam is squicked[/triggered] by ships with daisy/elias/peter and we’d like to read all of the works submitted so we’re asking not to receive submissions with those ships.” hating ships is literally completely normal but making rules hard to parse is going to attract questions, especially when the implication is that ships are excluded on the grounds of morality, and a blatant power difference ship (jonelias) is equated with jondaisy, which is from what ive seen almost exclusively shown to be a relationship between equals. that makes people EXTREMELY confused about where the line is. thats why youre getting so many questions about this.  

in general the carrd was spotty, guilt trippy, and needlessly moralizing where it definitely did not need to be. the key to getting people to engage without getting backlash is to make the event seem fun. when your carrd is filled with stuff about unrelated negative stuff people are not going to think it’s a fun event at all. 

and none of this even gets into the fact that at least one of the mods has a history of open hostility against pan people. i heard through the grapevine that he has since made a fauxpology about it, but frankly it already shone through in the language used in the event descriptions. its extremely hard to take any of this is good faith when it is easy to see that one of the organizers is quite fucking clear about thinking pansexuality is biphobic and the carrd is or at least used to be full of anti-pan (and other mspec identity) dogwhistles, and is notorious in some of the tma fic author circles for being extremely fucking nasty about trans men writing fic he doesn’t like to the point of pretending that we’re all cis people (in case youre not keeping track that is misgendering us by implication) because he doesn’t like it. i think some of you (or maybe all of you? idk) in general could stand to examine whether your engagements and participations in the fandom have been at all about having fun or adding positivity to anything, or simply making posts about what other people are doing wrong. it seems that every post i see from anyone in this group is guilt trippy and authoritative, and sadly this translated directly into the event. 

when youre, say, a trans man whose first touch to one of the mods was a post about how fic where trans men have piv sex with cis men is hurting him personally and making it a moral issue and not a matter of a simple preference to the point where he feels comfortable making claims about the trans men (and transmasc nonbinary people) writing fic about trans characters re: their gender or whether theyre fetishizing trans men, your willingness to engage in good faith with an event hosted by him that features numerous red flags is not going to be unconditional. 

im sorry to hear that it has been bad for your mental health, and idk whats fucking going on with this event anymore, but my good faith interpretations have diminished significantly since i saw the shit tmc specifically has been saying about pansexual people and pansexuality as an identity label. i have no clue where the rest of you stand but tmc has repeatedly, consistently shown himself to be unable to act in good faith towards anyone other than people who agree with him.  

[floxalopex]

Really small and silly thing of mine about Entrapdak sexuality headcanons, don't take it too personally in the slightest. I love every member who is part of this amazing fandom.

So, again I introduce myself: I'm made of autism, ADHD, body dysphoria, trauma and, they say, a bit of human flesh.

Stated that for me...

-Entrapta: demisexual demiromantic bi oriented, mildly in a demigirl spectrum;

-Hordak: demisexual demiromantic bi oriented, in a demiboy spectrum (although this is stronger here, he is very gnc/genderfluid).

I also like omni/pan oriented headcanons for Entrapta and AROACE headcanons for both.

As a demipansexual who thought 100% till 16 to be ace and who is slightely sex repulsed. Just this.

It's okay, to headcanon whoever with whatever.

I just think that Entrapta's being autistic (and Hordak is nd too fight me) has nothing, NOTHING, to do with her sexual orientation.

Idk how this is lived in other countries. I've seen so far that in other countries autistic people are considered inhuman->so aroace (there's no correlation with being human and liking sex at all cost) but in mine I've seen people thinking that "retarded people"->so autistic people too to them, are sex starved animals who, poor things, can't even control their bodily urges.

I don't think me being in the ace is a sign inconsistency, nor something that should be corrected. It's not "caused" by autism, maybe other things, but anyways it's here.

I understand that the majority of world population is allosexual. I mean, that the purpose of evolution isn't it? But aro and ace spectrum are, indeed, a spectrum.

Aros can fall in love. Aces can have sex and masturbate. Aroace people can have a family.

So when I hear:

"Entrapdak f**ck everyday" and "Entrapdak never do that, they don't even kiss much" to me they are BOTH, EQUALLY, VALID. They are headcanons and, according to my ideology of the "it's valid unless it blantly meets canon", they are both acceptable.

The aroace comunity keeps being erased from the LGBTQ+ comunity, sadly even by members of the said comunity AND the aroace comunity. They feel like not worthy of being part of the LGBTQ+ or something I guess. Not to mention how a "hybrid sexuality" such as mine is considered. Like, for some being pan is being desperate but being demi is being picky. So what am I? Desperatly picky? I was picky but now I'm desperate? I am picky only on Fridays or viceversa? *Spoliers: I'm a pancake*

It's hard to understand some sexualities, not to accept, mind you. That's something you should always do. I've questioned myself "what Is love" and thought "am I in the aro too?" but I don't think so. I don't understand much how would It feel to be aro, but at the same time I have things in common with It. See? It's complicated. And we, WE, queers know that.

So I understand if an autistic allo wants to headcanon them as such, but please don't say that it's ALWAYS ableist to headcanon a person in the ASD as aroace. Those people really exist.

And... that's It I guess.

[muselin]

This is strange asks anon

I have gotten a bunch but I delete most so here are two recent ones. I Made a post about intimate piercings (basically a MLT post) and someone ranted about *the germs* even followed it up with another ask that I didn’t publish where they tried to guilt trip me because I said something like “aren’t there more bacterial cells in your body right now than there are you cells?”, saying that I find them weird and made fun of them? Idk it was odd. Like, this was totally hypocritical but they took it why to serious 😔

Then someone send an ask announcing that they will no longer follow me bc I made realize that they are a sex repulsed Ace person and this was on anon so I have no idea why they would tell me?? My blog has like 450+ followers how would I know who unfollowed?? ^^;;;;

To answer some questions. We are not moots but we both share a moot so I see your posts on my dashboard sometimes.

As for audience and content, I write for stray kids and some of my stories did do pretty well (two of them even have like 500 notes with is a insane number for someone like me who used to write for smaller fandoms). I’m at university so I have time and do hang out on here (probably more than I should lol).

Last year I posted something every week but now I have a bit less time but more stress :( the other thing is most of my stories are pretty long (usually over 3k words) so they take a lot of time to edit. I keep track of my wips and I have like 80 k of unpublished, unfinished wips. rip me lol

Haha strange asks anon! I'll tag you as that then.

Tell you what, those people sound like some tumblr trolls. My policy with everything is: 1. Don't kinkshame 2. don't be abusive 3. don't be moral police over people's fantasies because what gives you the right over somebody else and 4. if you don't like something then don't read it and move on. I haven't experienced weird asks like that, just occasional hate ones that make no sense, usually when I've stood up for someone who's written something controversial and is getting kinkshamed or abused.

You have so much content waiting to go!! That's insane! That's a very different writing process to what I have, I post a finished fic maybe once or twice a month and usually only have one or two things in WIPs. I keep saying this, I don't believe I'm that creative as a person really, and if I had that many fics all going at once they would just get crappier.

I'm not being very useful again, I just don't know what the actual secret is to good content. I just do what I know, which is put out fics, do some ask games (like confessional monday) but not too often, read other people's stories and share what I like about them.

I'm curious who you are now, I might have read your stuff! If you feel like it, send me a message and we can talk some more. Or anon asks are also fine if you don't feel comfortable ❤

[watatsumi-island]

Hey so idk too much about the aro and ace spectrum. So can you educate me some more about aro/aceflux? I think it'd be cool to learn about it, especially bc media doesn't teach us shit and there's so many identities under Ace/Aro 💖

Oh, sure! I'd be happy to :)

-------

So first I'm going to start with Ace, since I am Asexual.

Some people just simply say that Asexuality/Being Asexual means that you you lack complete sexual attraction. Because of that definition, some people get confused when they hear about demisexuality, gray-asexuality and such, which is where we start talking about the Asexual spectrum.

For example, I'm Aceflux. Which means that sometimes my attraction fluctuates, but how I feel never leaves the spectrum. My sexuality doesn't change per say, it's just fluid.

So. Flat out Asexuality is never feeling sexual attraction towards anyone of any gender identity. Demisexuality is when you have to form a bond/friendship with someone before you begin to feel sexual attraction.

Lithosexuality is feeling sexual attraction, but not wanting it to be reciprocated. Placiosexuality is similar. But it's wanting to do sexual things with someone, and being okay if it's not reciprocated. (Tldr it's more about the action than a feeling) Aegosexuality is feeling a disconnect towards yourself and your sexual attraction, along with it's target. Etc, etc.

Those are many identities (and there are many more) and even among those, there are sex positive Aces (people who will have sex and are happy to and/or like to read about it), sex neutral Aces (does what it says on the can), and Sex repulsed Aces (They don't want sex at all/probably don't like reading about it either) Keep in mind that these are basic definitions, and different identities can mean different things for everyone. An Ace person might not want to ever have sex, but they like reading about it for whatever reason they have, etc.

Asexuality is again, a spectrum. But many people don't care. You'd think that "Hey I don't want to have sex with anyone" would make you the least controversial sexuality in the room, right? But no. There really are some people out there that would rather accept p*doph*les into the community than even one Asexual or any sort of A-spec. (true story, it happened to me) All the problems we face are ignored and treated lesser-than, heteromantic Asexuals are treated as if they're not even there, and popular media repeatedly bash us. Calling us "sick" and "attention whores" when we're just trying to live our lives peacefully and it hurts, tbh :/

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Aromanticism by definition is the lack of romantic attraction. And just like Asexuality, there are a lot of identities under it. Asexual and Aromantic are...you could say umbrella terms, and then you have everyone under it. Something like that. Recently I've been questioning as to whether or not I'm on the Aro spectrum or not, and I'm leaning more towards that I might be. So I may be able to give you some perspective? But if you're not satisifed you can always ask someone who's completely sure that they are Arospec.

Demiromantism is when you need to have a bond with someone to feel romantic attraction. Gray-Aromanticism is when you feel it sometimes (but it tends to be rare), it sort of follows the same pattern as Asexuality in terms of the names of the identities, just replace the sexual with romantic and then you have your definition. (Though that's not always the case)

A lot of people think that Asexual and Aromantic are synonyms for each other, when in a way, they're the complete opposite. You can be Asexual and not Aromantic, you can be Aromantic and not Asexual, and you can also be both!

As an Asexual, I can sadly, but confidently say that Aromantics are potrayed even worse because. Well. They're not even there. Genuinely- I've never heard of an Aro character in a tv show, movie or book. At least one that I can think of now. At least, when Asexuals get represented, even when it's bad, at least people will know that we're there and might do research on it for themselves. But Aromantics? It's like they don't exist. I'm definetly not going to start a dumb oppression olympics with this, since both have it very bad. But in terms of rep, Aros tend to have it a bit worse.

When Aros are discussed, people protray them as these heartless monsters. Especially when a person is Aromantic and not Asexual, people might say that they "Just want sex and don't care about the feelings of others" which is not true at all. All the aromantic people I know are some of the most considerate people I've met, far from heartless monsters. And though I can't speak on behalf of every Ace or Aro person, I can say that we are all humans. And our sexuality has not and will not change that.

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The over all point is that Asexuality and Aromanticism, and just- sexuality in general is complicated. And if more people were like you and cared enough to learn more, then Asexuality wouldn't be so terribly represented. So, thanks for asking. And if there was something that I missed, you can always ask again. My askbox is always opened. <33

Also, side note. You can always follow @aro-culture-is and @ace-culture-is if you want to see some of the experiences of A-spec people, and you're welcome to do your own research if there's something I can't/haven't answered. 💖

[afrosarah]

My own personal experience as it relates to that last reblog.. like, I identify very much with being aromantic asexual, but when I actually say that I'm aroace, I'm like, am I tho?? 👀

I feel as if I'm forever going to be second-guessing myself because due to nature of aromanticism itself I'm like ??? I honestly don't know what romantic attraction is even supposed to feel like. I have a terrible time separating my platonic feelings for my close friends from what would usually be considered romantic feelings or a desire for intimacy that goes beyond what is generally accepted as friendship-level, I guess.

Like, I highly doubt I actually want to pursue a romantic relationship with every single one of my good friends lmao. Before I figured myself out better, I had what were supposed to be sexual/romantic relationships and there was.. def an element missing for me that the other people were experiencing. So I'm confident I'm just very good friends with them, and that's just how I feel about friends. But how any individual experiences those feelings is like wildly different, you know?

I talk to some of my friends and I'm like.. do you ever think about your friends and you're just verklempt, you just want to scream or hit something, because you're so overcome with your love for them? And most of them are like "...nah lol" despite considering me one if their closest friends. And that's valid, too!

Idk. Then again I'm the aroace person that's kind of bad rep and thinks "QPR", while a valid label if you choose to use it, can just be.. friendship. I know that's what people say to mock or invalidate us, but I guess I just don't see the need for distinction either. The aro/ace community insists on trying to explain to allosexual and alloromantic people that platonic feelings are just as important and no less as romantic/sexual feelings, and I think assigning a different term to a certain kind of platonic relationship ("QPRs are not JUST friendships!") is completely hypocritical to that statement. Or rather, it can be, if that specific distinction is made. If there isn't a hierarchy to the depth of relationships, then I see no reason to separate them further. All the stuff people say might be part of a QPR is stuff that I, personally, would consider doing with a friend.

I'm rambling and off-topic, tho.

Idk. On various occasions, because I'm aroace, I've had people assume I'm sex-repulsed, I'm a virgin, I don't consume or create any NSFW content, I think intimacy is gross, I can't recognize romance/attraction between other people, that I can't recognize when a person is conventionally attractive, that I'd be unwilling to be in any kind of relationship.. so I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's good practice to only make a few surface-level assumptions about a person's identity based on their label.

[mcrmadness]

I think what the person meant by aroace and bi was a bi-oriented aroace.

Oriented aroace is aroace but the other types of attraction besides sexual and romantic are there and like a sexuality in a way. Like I'm ace but I still say I'm gay bc not only do I have romantic attraction to only men, but I also have aesthetic, sensual, ect attraction towards only men as well

So that persons attractions (besides sexual and romo) are oriented in a bi way

Idk if that made sense but I hope it helped

Ohhhh I see!

I just find it very confusing because personally I am able to divide attraction into 4 or 5 different ones: sexual, romantic, sensual and aesthetic. Of which I myself only experience aesthetic regardless of gender which is why I sometimes might use the word "pan-aesthetic" even. And then there is the fifth one aka platonic attraction which I still don't really understand what it means or feels like. I might be aplatonic too.

So when a term has the word -sexual attached to it, I immediately imagine it also means _sexual attraction which is why I find/found it so confusing because asexuality is the lack (or very small amount) of sexual attraction, so how can one feel and not feel sexual attraction at the same time? Unless their sexuality just is fluid, but I am not sure if there's also a word for that. Actually, I think there's yet another term even in the asexual/aromantic spectrums for this, but I have never heard anyone being both at the exact same time.

I have heard of the -oriented terms before, tho, and have seen people using them, too. They do make somewhat sense but at the same time not (for me, at least), unless it's someone who's maybe demi or greyace, as sometimes people also like to define their gender "preference" (if it's the right word) with these.

More about my personal experiences under the cut ↓↓↓

I guess my own asexuality and aromanticism just are so black&white for me that I find it really confusing when I see posts and terms where these things are basically all over the place. It's so difficult to put them in order in my head when my own order is way different and much "simpler". I cannot even compare sexual and romantic attraction with each other because I don't experience either at all. It's like trying to imagine something that simply does not exist at all.

I also don't experience sensual attraction because I'm touch-repulsed, but I can imagine that it probably feels a bit same as when I see a picture of a tiger and have an urge to pet. Aesthetic is just the urge to "stare", for me. Bit like sometimes I wanna stare at the orange SALE tags because they are so pretty and bright color it almost hurts my eyes. (Ummmm why do I have the sensual and aesthetic urge to do only things that could either kill me or then hurt my eyes??? ::D)

And platonic attraction makes maybe even the less sense for me of these all, especially because I understood that it and "platonic love" are quite far from each other. Or not far, but not linked the same way as e.g. romantic love and romantic attraction are to each other. There are also several different descriptions for platonic attraction, depending on whom you're asking from. But being aplatonic does not mean that one does not want to have friends, that much I know.

This is why I sometimes use the label "loveless aro" but I don't know if there's much or any difference between aplatonic and loveless aro, so I often use them both interchangeably cos I forget which one I like more :DD And whenever I'm confused by platonic attraction, I use 'loveless aro', and whenever I'm confused by loveless aros, then I use aplatonic... simple, but not really... :D

So basically if I was put mine as a list, it would look like this:

Asexual

Aromantic

Asensual

Pan-aesthetic

+ Aplatonic and/or loveless aro.

What I prefer to do is to just stop at that aesthetic/platonic state, and I don't want to start chopping these identities into microlabels inside microlabels as, personally, I don't feel like it serves any purpose for myself. Only exception being that loveless aro one, as it's main idea is that "love is not what makes us human" and it makes me feel better on those days when I start worrying about what if I am a psychopath for not feeling/understanding even platonic emotions.

And then of course I also use the terms sex-repulsed, romance-repulsed and touch-repulsed, but I don't think these have to be tied only to aspec identities. Especially touch-repulsion can simply be just a trauma related. I find it also highly unlikely that every single allosexual is "sex-favorable" even when they experience sexual attraction.

This is actually something I was already so annoyed by even back then when I found out about asexuality for the first time when I was 16 or 17 (it was in 2008), it annoyed me so much that being not-ace automatically meant (or still means) that every allo is sex-favorable.

Back then, asexuality also basically meant only these two: aromanticism + sex-repulsion. At least that's how it was understood in my country back in the day, or at least I understood it that way, as no one talked about romantic orientations yet.

I learnt about romantic orientations a few years later and finally things made even more sense - as for a moment I kept calling myself as "asexual bi". But turns out I was just aroace with ADHD and having people-hyperfixations on online friends! :D

[acespec-ed]

hi!! I was wondering if u could help me? I’m alloaro and I just discovered the term aromid… and it makes me question myself. I’m very unsure if I’m on the asexual spectrum or if I just experience sex repulsion sometimes? I’ve looked at so many acespec labels and cannot find one that actually fits me. literally I’ve seen them all. I haven’t really felt comfortable calling myself ace and I do enjoy saying I’m alloaro but I wonder if I’m actually on the ace spectrum as well… how do I differentiate between sex repulsion and asexuality? For one, I’m hypersexual and feel the need/pressure to be sexual or I’m not good enough… and I do want sex I think? I fantasize about it and I enjoy smut and some art .. but when I visually see nakedness or irl sex… it makes me feel very uncomfortable and I don’t enjoy that. I enjoy the thoughts and fiction and when people are only partially clothed…. but I just have this feeling of repulsion and fear of actually doing it irl (what if I hate it and it makes me uncomfortable?) and when I think about it I do imagine myself and this other person but it’s also hard to actually see us and not just faceless non existing people… and idk how much of me wanting sex is just pressure from hypersexuality or me genuinely having sexual attraction … idk if I really have much of a libido or want for sex?? would I be able to call myself alloaro AND aromid.. as in I’m alloaro but possibly SOMEWHERE on the ace spectrum?.. or maybe I’m just sex repulsed and fully not ace at all? I feel like my situation here makes me unable to call myself alloaro but I AM alloaro and I love being alloaro… I don’t wanna stop saying I am but it also feels like there’s more to it?

same anon from before! I read a post of yours about the umm “allos see ‘cake’ and immediately know they want to eat it” and it confuses me … idk what I experience? I see fictional characters and I can go “they look sexy I am attracted to them maybe if want to have sex with them?” I see people and ??? idk sometimes I get unwanted thoughts of having sex with friends when I don’t actually want to or find attractive…I can see people and think they’re sexy/attractive .. but idk if I’d think “yeah I’d have sex with them” I mean it depends bc I think someone can imagine having sex with someone and enjoy it and want it but would they actually wanna seriously have sex with that stranger without having any connection with them…? Sex is scary so I’d need to know and trust them maybe… be scared to show my body..but I don’t think I’d be comfortable calling myself demi? Idk I don’t get this .. do I look at someone and immediately think whether I’d want to have sex with them or not? I really don’t know … also.. so…. Libido is just wanting sex in general and sexual attraction is wanting specific people?… how do I differentiate all of this it’s so confusing! I guess MAYBE I do look at peopl and go “wow they’re pretty/sexy id want sex” BUT I DONT KNOW LIKE IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT… am I not allo WHATS going on here .. can you explain what it would be like to be sex repulsed AND allo instead of ace? and the difference between that and being ace and sex repulsed? thank u

~~

I’m so sorry I’m saying so much I just have no one to talk to :C … but um… someone told me “if you’re sex repulsed .. you’re still allo unless you feel like u don’t relate to being allo anymore” and I’m honestly so confused because…. do my weird feelings towards sex influence my sexuality? do I still feel connected to being allo? personally I feel like these feelings are ones allo people don’t typically have ..plus I’ve always felt bad for not being sexual enough or feeling the same sexual feelings as people/ (also why do I have sex repulsion I don’t think I rlly had much sexual trauma going on.. some little incidents but still??) and if I told allo people these feelings… they would not relate and would think I’m weird for it ..but an ace person might relate and would understand … I feel like it does influence how I see my sexuality/attraction and complicates things…however.. I feel like I can’t call myself acespec bc often I want sex (even with a specific person.. although they look different when I imagine them and also don’t exactly have a Look/face/body in my head..same with me) often and I’m hypersexual so I like over sexualizing myself …plus I like saying I’m alloaro and don’t want to let go of it… nor do I want to ID with a specific ace spec label.. I’d like to just say I’m ace (just like how I call myself aromantic even when I’m specifically gray romantic) why can’t I just be ace and not ace at the same time or in between I don’t know 😭…. what do allos experience how is their life like with sexual attraction and how is someone’s life like without sexual attraction … I don’t get it at alllllll

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I saw you sent three asks and decided to combine them all in this post to make answering this easier. Just reading these asks are making my head spin, so I can only imagine how confused you must feel. And it's fine that you're sending so many asks- I know what it's like to have no one to talk to about things.

I'll start this off by saying you can call yourself whatever you feel most comfortable calling yourself. And if it's alloaro, then of course you can keep calling yourself alloaro. You do sound like you could fit somewhere on the ace spectrum, but I couldn't tell you where.

A lot of what I'm about to say you might already know, since it sounds like you've been doing your own bit of research, but here I go.

Whether or not you desire sex on its own doesn't determine if you're asexual. If you've never felt any urges to have sex with anyone specific, then you haven't experienced sexual attraction. So it's helpful to remove your interest in sex itself, along with libido, when questioning. Focus it all on if you've wanted sex with anyone in particular. If the answer is no, or very rarely, it's likely you could be on the asexual spectrum. You mentioned you've experienced it towards someone specific, so it sounds to me like you'd be in the gray area, if on it at all.

I will say, it is totally normal to be nervous, and even scared, of having sex at first. A lot of allos are able to get over this fear- possibly because of sexual attraction. I first felt sexual attraction towards my boyfriend, and though I was repulsed, I wanted to do sexual things with him so bad I was able to get over the fear and disgust through slow exposure. So I think sexual attraction on its own is a huge motivator to "get over" sex repulsion and go for it.

Of course, you should never do anything you are not comfortable doing. And never force yourself into doing any sexual activities. A lot of aces have ended up with trauma over that sort of thing. The reason I went for it was because I naturally became comfortable with things escalating as time went on. Kinda like exposure therapy, I guess.

I'm not sure if you already saw it, but I did write this post on an experience I had where I was sex-repulsed by someone I was sexually attracted to. So it is possible to be sex-repulsed and sexually attracted to a person, but I understand how hard it can be to tell for sure.

I can't tell you what it's like to be allo. But other than the few times I've experienced sexual attraction, I lived my life with a libido directed towards no one, fluctuating between being sex-indifferent and repulsed, and occasionally getting a crush I had no sexual attraction towards. 

As for what it’s like being sex-repulsed and ace: I can’t imagine having sex with anyone. I just can’t. Every time I get a crush, I try to imagine sex with them, and my brain just shuts that off. It wants nothing to do with those thoughts. Sex-repulsed with sexual attraction: It’s only happened twice and the first time (with my bf) I had no idea wtf was going on and it was 10 years ago so I can’t remember enough to tell you aside from what I’ve already said. The other time though, I wasn’t 100% sure if it was sexual attraction at first- but my body became aroused at the sight of him, and the arousal went away when he left. But when I thought of sex with him, I was grossed out. But I kept forcing myself to think of sex with him, and grew more comfortable with the idea. And the more I thought about it, the more I figured, “hey, maybe I am sexually attracted to him.” 

Every person is different though.

I can totally understand your confusion because some of your experiences sound like you’re allo and some sound like you could be acespec. I honestly don’t know what else to say or what answers to give. I will say this though: I strongly doubt any allo has had to question their allosexuality as much as you are.

But circling back to what I first said: you can label yourself as whatever you feel most comfortable with. It’s okay if you don’t fit the exact definitions of an identity 100%. Every person is different, even those sharing the same label. And if you decide your experiences are just too complicated for a label, you don’t need one either. 

Sorry if this was all over the place, but I hope it was somewhat helpful!

[ckret2]

idk if someone actually finally sent this ask but i'mma do it since it seems people are dancing around it: if you're comfortable with it, may we have some radiosnake sexual headcanons (wherein alastor is not sexually repulsed or is demisexual/grey-ace ofc)?? love, a very happy demisexual who just finished a cold day in hell literally two minutes ago

You win the prize for "actually has the courage to directly ask for sexual headcanons" because no, nobody else has asked yet. Sorry for taking so long to answer it but like... the answer is over 2000 words. Have fun.

Now, anon, I've got something important you should know.

When I brainstorm radiosnake stuff, there's a little chatroom I do it in. What happens is, a lot of times, I'll come up with a scene or a scenario or a plot arc, and I'll describe it to that chat. And then, every once in a while, I'll say, "... and then here's how that same thing goes over in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks." I have. A looot of little ideas set in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks.

(He's still somewhere on the ace spectrum in all those ideas—either he's demi or else he's sex-neutral/sex-positive ace, depending on the idea��but he does Fuck.)

However, 1) a majority of these ideas are very clearly set specifically in CDIH's verse, and so I don't wanna share them as broad "radiosnake headcanons" when they're tied to one specific fanfic; and 2) a lot of them are angsty, and if you're asking for general headcanons then I'm assuming what you probably want is them actually having a good time rather than several decades of self-induced suffering over unrequited desire. So if you want CDIH-specific stuff and/or angsty stuff (or, more likely, CDIH-specific angsty stuff), hit me up again and I'll share some more stuff. For now, I'll talk about more general non-angsty headcanons.

Okay so most of this answer is geared toward Alastor's perspective since it's like, it's the more interesting one to me in this context, he's the one gradually figuring stuff out while Sir Pent's hanging out being allo with over a century of having his sexuality sorted out.

So that you know what kinda headcanons I'm rolling with here: there's, like, several ways I can conceptualize Alastor's orientation in my head, and they're sorta ranked by how "true" they are to me. Not "true" as in "how canon I think they are," but "true" as in, like, what Feels the Most Right to me.

The #1 Most True version of Alastor in my head is 100% ace/aro. He's not "repulsed" by sex (or romance, for that matter) in the sense of "disgusted/horrified/never ever wants to hear about it," but he, like, has absolutely zero interest in DOING it. He's not repulsed by the subject but he is by most touch, including the kind of touching necessary for sex. Might have some, like, academic curiosity about sex & romance, might enjoy it in a fictional context simply for the drama it adds to a story, but has no desire to be a participant. He can listen to a friend talk about their sexual escapades in graphic detail for an hour without an ounce of discomfort but if they offer him a quick peck on the lips he goes "I'm out." He might have sex Once just to see what it's like/just to say he has and that’s where his curiosity ends.

So that's my mental Most True Version Of Alastor.

The SECOND most true version of Alastor is like, the exact same as that, except he's just barely demiromantic enough that he might, once, fall in love. The odds of him falling in love are the same as someone's odds of winning the lottery. This is the version of Alastor I use in CDIH and other radiosnake fics, where Sir Pentious happens to have been lucky enough to win the lottery, but also, it took fifteen years before it happened. Alastor's feelings about touch & sex are the same, EXCEPT that whoever he loves is excluded from the Touch Is Unpleasant rule, which opens up a few more possibilities.

And I've got more mental versions of Alastor but that's as far as we need to go to be relevant to this post.

So given the above: Alastor's natural internal pool of Enjoyable Physical Activities that he would be autonomously inclined to want to try with Sir Pentious is broader than "nothing at all" but stops short of actual sex. More like sensual activities.

The not-necessarily-sexual sensual things that are obviously & immediately available on Alastor’s Selectable Menu Of Romantic Physical Activities are gonna be things like:

--Cuddles! We're starting as vanilla as possible, folks. Cuddling and sleeping in bed together. 95% naked cuddles are acceptable, although Alastor is inclined to keep his underpants on. Moving to "underpants" from "underpants AND undershirt" is a Notable Intimacy Milestone for him because like Back In His Day undershirts were part of the required underwear, so to him that's taking off 50% of his underwear. It's like switching from loose boxers to a thong. On the other hand Sir Pent is just, totally nude, because look at him he already isn't wearing any pants, he's got nothing to hide.

--Massage! Neither one of them is any sort of professional but tbh on a scale of 1 to 10 a massage can be as bad as a 3 and still be enjoyable y'know? Alastor tends to offer if he notices Sir Pent is sore and/or if Alastor has decided he's gonna be in Extreme Over-The-Top Performatively* Romantic Mode tonight. He always sort of forgets that the option of being massaged exists until Sir Pent offers it in return, because, like, he thinks of himself as a floating radio voice with an inconvenient meat puppet attached, sometimes he forgets that the meat puppet can be pampered too. And then he sits there in a blissed-out daze while Sir Pent goes holy crap your shoulders are like oak, how have you not snapped your own spine with tension yet.

(*Note here when I say Alastor can get "performatively" romantic I don't mean "going through the motions but isn't feeling the love"; I mean that, like, basically NO romantic gestures come naturally to him because he just isn't feeling the gestures even though he's definitely feeling the love. He's sort of figuring out How To Perform Romance As An Action by drawing on how he's seen it done in books/movies/etc. and picking & choosing the things that seem most fun to him to do. So in a sense he is performing a role that he's conscious of when he interacts with Sir Pent romantically, but that's because "performing a role" is how Mr. Perpetual Radio Host approaches all of life—and he's only performing this one because he genuinely wants to and because he's enjoying it.)

--Body worship! Alastor is really deeply squicked out by touching someone's skin/hair/fur but on the other hand (and maybe specifically because it avoids the squick) he is really deeply fascinated by Sir Pentious's scales, which feel Not At All Like Mammal Skin. He also still does the "??? oh right, I have a body too" thing when Sir Pent returns the attention—but Alastor's like, okay, I’m obviously more familiar with my own body than Sir Pent is, I don’t find my body that interesting but it must still be interesting to Sir Pent.

--Showering together! Sir Pent has figured out that if he starts singing in the shower there is a 99% chance that Alastor will trip over his own pants trying to simultaneously strip down and run to the bathroom so that he can join in on SHOWER DUET TIME. Frankly it's a lot safer to just go "hey I'm about to take a shower, wanna join?" but sometimes he doesn't just to see how fast Alastor shows up.

--Kissing! Making out is completely and always an option. Three of Alastor's most defining character traits are being a radio host (which kind of reduces a person to their voice), his perpetual smile, and his cannibalism. Like 80% of this dude's existence revolves around his mouth. He's absolutely got some kind of oral fixation. He gets into making out—as long as it's with the right person. There is exactly one right person. Sir Pent is okay with this.

Other enjoyable mouth activities:

- Kissing places other than the mouth

- Being kissed in places other than the mouth

- Biting

- Being bitten

And there's the overall list of non-sexual sensual activities that Alastor is into!

... And then eventually at some point Sir Pent is like "no pressure but hhhhypothetically sssspeaking are there possibly any sexual activities you might be interested in trying out" and Alastor is like "What? Oh! Right! Actually forgot sex existed for a bit. Yeah sure fine let’s try it." And that's the point at which they start experimenting with activities beyond Alastor's default activities!

Despite just about everything else with mouths being good, things Alastor is NOT into:

- Blowjobs

They did try. It seemed like a logical starting point. Alastor was like "I've liked putting my mouth everywhere else on this snake, it stands to reason I'll like putting it there too!" He got himself psyched up. He faced down The Dicks. He went, hmm. He stuck his tongue out and poked one.

He went "Yeah this isn't happening."

And Sir Pent went "Honestly you've already surpassed my wildest dreams just by getting that far."

They tried it the other way around too and Alastor went "Yyyye... hmmm... nnnnnooo no, no, don't think so. Not into that at all."

And it took him all of five seconds to reject the mere possibility of ever trying rimming, and the only reason it took that long to reject is because first Sir Pent had to explain what that is.

But everything else with mouths is great! Like. Everything. Sir Pent could go "can you lick my eyeball" and Alastor would go "which one? :)" (Sir Pent would probably not ask for this. But the point is he could.)

Figuring out Alastor's acceptable/enjoyable sex acts was a lot of experimentation like the above with BJs. And what they figured out is: he doesn't want his junk touched. Like. At all. In any context. Which, you know, understandably cuts down on nearly all the sexual options out there. But that’s the hard line: no touching his dick and no touching his butthole. Even if he, like, actively has a raging boner.

(Fun fact that I actually had to do research on, because despite being ace I did not know this due to the fact that I don't have a dick: if you are ace and have a dick there's good odds you'll still pop a boner in sexual situations, even if you have zero interest in what you’re looking at or participating in it. It's like something in your crotch goes "oh! Oh! A naked butt! I know what to do here! We got training for this! Time to ready the cannon!" and something in your brain goes "why the hell are you readying the cannon, we are absolutely not going to use the cannon, the cannon is a major inconvenience here" and the something in your crotch goes "listen, pal, I'm just following my orders. I don't tell you how to do your job, don't tell me how to do mine." The tl;dr here is that when Alastor is experimenting with Sir Pent, he could be completely bored out of his mind and still get a boner because biology is funky like that.)

The first few times this happens Sir Pent goes "are you sure you don't want me to, y'know, give you a handjob or something?? I feel like an inconsiderate jerk not helping out" and Alastor goes "absolutely not" and Sir Pent goes well okay I've made a career out of being an inconsiderate jerk, I guess I can do it in the bedroom too.

What they do manage to gradually figure out is that Alastor is perfectly fine with touching Sir Pent's junk, as long as it's not with his own junk or with his mouth. So hand jobs? Totally fair game. Letting Sir Pent grind against his thigh or abdomen? No problems with that. (Alastor flopped on his stomach going "this really does it for you??" and Sir Pent rubbing in Alastor's tail fur going "... yes." and Alastor is like, "wow. wild.")

More than that, Alastor gradually starts to figure out he likes that. Not necessarily the sensation of having a couple of dicks rubbing on his thigh—that's just sorta weird and probably always will be—but the knowledge of what it's doing to Sir Pent. He likes knowing he's giving Sir Pentious pleasure. He likes hearing him gasp and seeing him writhe and knowing that it's because Sir Pent wants Alastor and that Alastor has the power to give him exactly what he wants. He likes hearing Sir Pent hissing his name and little praises and one-word requests. ("Alastor’s existence revolves around mouths” includes sounds coming out of mouths, he gets more out of words and little noises than he does out of sight & touch combined.)

They figure out that what Alastor enjoys doing best is spooning Sir Pent from behind, wrapped around him to jerk him off. In bed or in the shower or even sitting with Sir Pent in his lap or between his legs. Alastor can put his chin on Sir Pentious's shoulder to listen to the sounds he makes and watch how his long long body moves, he can wrap his free arm around his waist and feel how he tenses and relaxes and squirms, they can kiss (and/or bite, biting is nice) with a little bit of careful positioning...

Also it's easier for Alastor to quietly sing to him from there.

... Alastor sings during sex. For the record. The first time he does it it's a nervous "I don't know what I'm supposed to be saying and it seems too quiet—oh I've got a solution" but soon it's just. A thing he does. Sir Pent gradually goes from "what? seriously? this is what you're doing?" to "lmao you dork" to "well I guess I now have a new kink I will never be able to get rid of, thanks." Sometimes he'll shakily sing along and Alastor's guts will melt into warm goo.

So there's a general overview of the more, like, normal stuff they get up to. Considering that their shared hobbies include things like "murder" and "being better than everyone else" and one of them is a cannibal, I'm sure that once they get down the basics they just get weirder. Copious amounts of blood get involved! Not their own blood. Other people's. 

[aceofwhump]

Submitted by anon:

Hey! 

Sorry if this is all just a rambling mess or too personal to even be asking you in the first place (if so, please feel free to ignore away) but I’ve been questioning a lot lately whether or not I might be asexual & I was just curious about how you knew you were? I keep going through moments (especially after reading about other people’s experiences in the whump community) of thinking for certain that I am but then I end up thinking things over and doubting it.

I can say for certain that I do find people hot/handsome/attractive/sexy/yada yada but I can’t really tell whether that’s in a sexual way or not? I don’t really ever look at a person & think ‘god they’re hot, I’d love to f*ck them’ but then surely nobody does that without establishing a relationship with the person first, right?

Most of the time I’m not really ever instantly attracted to a person (if you showed me a photo, for example and asked me if I found that person hot I’d probably be pretty indifferent) but (and this is mainly in regards to celebrities) once I’ve been familiarised with them and their personality and seen them in a few things, say interviews and movies or stuff, I may develop an attraction to them (this is particularly true when it comes to seeing actors getting whumped, I find that most of my attractions form that way tbh).

Of course there’s the odd occasion where a person may be undeniably attractive & aesthetically pleasing and I’ll be attracted to them on the offset but it’s rarely the case.

Other than that, despite maybe a couple of people that I’ve found kind of  pleasant to look at, I don’t think I’ve really ever been attracted to anyone I’ve known in person, at least not in that way.

Also, whilst sex scenes themselves don’t neccessarily make me uncomfortable (can’t say I get the appeal but it doesn’t really  offend me in any way), if there’s a scene involving the nudity of an actor that I’m attracted to (as in full frontal) it makes me extremely uncomfortable. I guess that could just because it feels like an invasion of privacy as opposed to anything else though. I’ve been occasionally known to watch certain things to deal with particular urges and nudity doesn’t bother me then so I have no clue why it does in other situations.

I’ve also never had a relationship or been intimate with anyone in any way, nor can I say that I’m particularly interested in having one/doing so. I’m kind of introverted & socially awkward so maybe that’s a factor but I also don’t know if my disinterest in relationships is related to the whole concern & expectation of having to have sex with someone. I also don’t even know for certain that I’m 100% against the idea of sex. The thought of sex is not really something that appeals to me & I feel like I would happily die without ever experiencing it but I also wouldn’t say I’m entirely repulsed by it? I’ve occasionally daydreamed about characters doing the deed (never myself with anybody else though).

Also, this final part may will sound extremely cheesy so I apologize in advance but sometimes I see characters being all soft and adoring and affectionate with eachother and I kind of think f*ck man I want that. That could just be the whumper in me always seeking that comfort side of things that is so lacking though or maybe it’s just me thinking I want it because it’s supposed to be what everyone wants in life.

This was only supposed to be a short ask and instead you got an entire essay of me rambling about myself ahsgshsh, I’m so sorry! My mind is literally a mess😂.

TL;DR Idk I’m just very confused 🤔

Mod reply below:

Hi hun!! Don’t worry about a long message cause my reply got just as long lol.

I'm really glad you felt comfortable coming to me with this and I'm more than happy to help if I can!

First let me tell you a bit about how I worked out that I am both asexual and aromantic (this might be a jumbled mess so I apologize in advance for that)

So I found asexuality in 2014 and pretty damn quickly accepted and knew that I was asexual. I went through the tumblr tag (back when it was full of people’s experiences and feelings and so much positivity) and related strongly to other asexual people’s experiences. Some of those things included:

Not wanting kids

Having absolutely zero interest in ever having sex. Can go my whole life without and be just fine thanks

Not once have I seen another person and thought about having sex with them

Thought sexual attraction was either a myth/made up or only developed after you knew the person for a long time

Don’t understand why people on tv break up with each other over sex. It’s not that important, right?

Thinking people are “hot” or “sexy” but that just means aesthetically pleasing. Like a painting.

Having a sex drive but would rather take care of it myself than have sex. It’s like an annoying itch. I get annoyed, I scratch it, it goes away, I’m good.

Avoided sex ed whenever possible because I was uncomfortable with sex.

Don’t read smutty fanfic.

Sex on tv makes me uncomfortable not aroused.

Why are people obsessed with butts??? I don’t get it.

Hate when main characters get together in tv shows because that usually means they’re going to have sex and WHY DO THEY NEED TO HAVE SEX?? Isn’t love enough? I don’t get it!!

The idea of getting married and having to have sex with that person that night is horrifying.

All the universal asexual symbols and things that the community has. Like the playing cards, the black ring, the aces love cake, aces love pizza, that stuff. I loved and agreed with every single one. I know the other sexuality do this do but I never saw those, laughed, and went “yeah that’s me!” Just asexuality.

It only took a day if researching before I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was asexual. All these experiences and feelings my fellow asexuals felt really fit with my own experiences.

HOWEVER

My aromantism was a lot harder for me to pin down. I think I went through 4 different romantic orientations before working out how I felt. It was all so confusing and I couldn’t tell what was romantic, what was sexual, and what was neither. I didn’t understand it at all and I spent a long time confused. With sexual attraction I knew I didn't feel that. Never once felt that desire to have sex with a specific person. Not ever. But romantic? I thought I had felt that. Couldn't be sure though. I'm sure now but back then I was very confused. I started thinking I was hetero-romantic because I was only every "interested" in guys but it didn’t quite feel right. Next I found the word cupioromantic which was you don't feel romantic attraction but you still desire a romantic relationship. I wore that label for a short time but once again it wasn’t quite right. Every time the possibility of a relationship into my life I ran cause I didn’t want it. Next I found lithromantic which is you feel romantic attraction but as soon as its reciprocated it goes away. I thought hey that’s it! But I finally I took a very hard look at myself and my interactions with people and what it was I actually did feel and decided that I was truly aromantic. I just didn’t want to be labeled as such because I was a huge romantic and I felt like this label meant I couldn’t have one. It took a while but now I know that isn’t true at all. I know now that I don’t actually want a relationship but I want the closeness with someone that being in a relationship entails. I can get that with friends. I went through the times I thought I had felt romantic attraction and tried to fit them into the attractions above. What I felt for that one girl in my English history course? Yeah that was platonic? That actor I think is super hot? That's aesthetic. I'd love to just cuddle with and be touched by my one friend? Sensual. The one guy I dated? Yeah I only dated him because he liked me not because I felt anything for him.

Other things that helped me realize I don’t feel romantic attraction:

I have had one boyfriend my entire life (high school, lasted 10 months) and I hated it. I didn’t like holding hands with him. He asked to kiss me and I told him no. I thought (still do) that kissing was gross and no way did I want to do that. I hated when he kissed my cheek or held me too long. I didn’t understand his strong emotions toward me nor did I understand why people dated. I didn’t get it. I didn’t like it.

I have had fake crushes/faked “they’re hot, would totally hit that” because I thought i was supposed to feel that way about people. Everyone had crushes or wanted to kiss and have sex with someone else. I never did. Didn’t get it.

I thought a crush was someone you chose. Like, I thought you went “That guy/girl is funny and nice. I now decide to have a crush on him.” But apparently that is not true at all.

I have no desire to get married or date. In fact I prefer to live my life without it.

I’ve never looked at someone and felt or developed what can be described as romantic feelings.

Those times I thought I did were really just platonic feelings. I wanted to be their friend. Not their girlfriend.

I think whumperflies are the closest I’ve ever come to feeling something akin to sexual attraction but I personally don’t classify it as sexual attraction. I also get that feeling seeing someone get comforted and being soft and affection and wanting that. For me, I think that’s me being touch starved af. I’d love to have someone to cuddle with and have it not be sexual or romantic. Sounds like maybe you do too. And that’s okay :)

Based on your words and feelings I'd suggest you take a look at the following terms. They might help you pin down how you feel. They certainly helped me

Demisexual/Demiromantic: where people only experience sexual attraction to folks that they have close emotional connections with. In other words, demisexual people only experience sexual attraction after an emotional bond has formed.

Gray Asexual/Gray Romantic: in which a person may only experience sexual attraction on occasion

Sex repulsed/neutral/positive: How you feel towards sex and/or having sex. You can be positive about it, feel repulsed by sex and sexual acts, or be completely neutral about it

Sexual attraction: looking at someone and wanting to have sexual content with them.

Romantic attraction: wanting to have a romantic relationship with a certain person.

Aesthetic attraction: thinking someone is pleasing to look at. Appreciating their appearance.

Sensual attraction: wanting to touch/cuddle/be physically close to a person.

Platonic attraction: wanting to be friends with a person

To me it sounds like you could be demi or gray but it’s ultimately up to you. If you feel like any of those terms fit you then don’t be afraid to accept that label. And if you change your mind as you learn more about your self and want to use a different label then that’s totally cool! Like I said, I went through 4 different romantic labels before finding one that fit. Try things on and see how it feels for you.

I also suggest checking out some of these blogs because I found them really helpful. @asexualityexists @asexualfacts @asexualawarenessweek @acejokes @thehumorousace @outer-space-aro-ace @a-spec-tacular @life-of-an-asexual

You can also feel free to scroll through my main blog asexual tag if you want. http://thewanderingace.tumblr.com/tagged/asexual

I don’t know if any of this was helpful or not but if you have any other questions don’t be afraid to message me! I’m happy to help where I can!

[arofili]

🏳️‍🌈 for sauron and maedhros if you’re still taking them?? :3c

Sauron: honestly, my thoughts on sauron’s sexuality & relationships are pretty much summed up in this post from the last ask game i did. the short version: he is the embodiment of evil twink energy. as for gender….yeah, “evil twink” pretty much sums that up too. i have…….Thots on ainur gender in general, and while mairon is fairly femme, he’s also mostly a dude. he’s an evil gay twink willing to do whatever takes to get what he wants, and that includes shapeshifting and sleeping with people he’s not attracted to! it’s just bonus if he gets to do what he feels like doing and get what he wants.

Maedhros: [CW: the usual maedhros-related subjects. tread carefully] ooof. this is a big question. i’ve had a lot of flip flopping headcanons for him, which means i’m very open to however anyone else decides to depict him.

for gender: maedhros is trans and there’s nothing you can do about it!!! joking aside, i’m very flexible with his gender. trans guy maedhros is excellent, and i’m really fond of nb mae too, but for example in my modern au series i have him as a cis dude…but fingon is trans. so whatever i do with him, it’s highly likely there will be some trans stuff involved! so far i’ve pretty much gone with russingon where either gender doesn’t come up as a factor / he’s cis by default (boring, i know) or where one of them is trans but the other is cis. smh i should really write some russingon fic where they’re both trans! so in short: maedhros is trans, except when i don’t feel like getting into it.

as for sexuality….he’s gay, i suppose. the one time where i was presented with a situation where to depict him with a woman i literally couldn’t do it, lmao. but i also see him as arospec, somehow? probably greyro? (i actually Just read a post about this which helped me solidify that hc!) idk, i haven’t quite figured it out, i’m not sure. i think fingon is probably the only person he’s ever felt Really In Love with, but he’s had (and continues to have!) emotional attachments to other men.

after thangorodrim i think he’s caedsexual (ace due to trauma, basically) and sex repulsed for a long time. he’s still very much emotionally attached to fingon, and he wants what they had to come back, but he’s permanently altered from his experiences in angband. i do think he “gets better,” in many ways (ie, his sex repulsion is temporary/goes away after awhile for the most part, and he goes from straight up ace to more aceflux; he’s sometimes attracted to fingon and sometimes wants sex, but it’s not really reliable/consistent) but it’s not the same as it was before. fingon, of course, takes this all in stride, because he loves maedhros and respects his boundaries and is there for him in every way, pretty much.

- of course, i don’t always go with this interpretation, and a lot of the time i’m just like “they FUCK” because i want them to, but this is my main headcanon for “canon,” which honestly is quite different from “what i write usually.” but if i wrote a “this is what i think actually happened in canon” fic, not a “i want to explore this dynamic/possibility/au” fic, it would absolutely include caedsexual maedhros. and i think mae is very conflicted about this and has a lot of internal issues about being suddenly ace when he was allosexual before, even apart from the trauma of angband everything awful experienced there - with fingon, he’s on his way to some form of recovery, and then. fingon dies. and maedhros blames himself. and everything goes back to being Very Terrible. he might start using sex as a form of self harm :(

personally i’m very much squicked by dark!maedhros aus, so i don’t think he ever forces himself on anyone. he’s not the kind of person to intentionally hurt others (kinslayings aside…), even when he’s trying to hurt himself. and i’m not a fan of feanorian incest either, esp in combination with dark!mae….

as for ships: russingon is my otp obviously, but i also dabble with maedhros/azaghal (i’m a slut for elf/dwarf ships, what can i say!) and maedhros/finrod (pre-russingon) and i’m dabbling in maedhros/turgon post-nirnaeth.

so yeah, that’s a lot of me rambling on about my very favorite sad kinslayer, and in the end not saying very much at all. it’s a lot of “i like this in this context” and “this is my main headcanon but i’ve never actually written a fic with it” and “you can convince me of a lot if you write it well enough.” i guess tl;dr: gay, greyro, caedsexual after thangorodrim, trans in some way probably, but really whatever suits the story i’m working on at the moment!