#or recs for content with ace rep im open

[cardboardqueen]

some thoughts on asexuality as represented in fanfic

this is by no means a condemnation of any particular action or group, just a representation of my feelings which don’t necessarily have any affect on the feelings or actions of others

but I am honestly so tired of the “but I like making you feel good” approach to asexuality in fan content. 

(under a cut bc apparently i have some feelings about this, TL;DR at the end.  if you’re sitting there going ‘how dare they’, please just scroll past this)

Again, it’s a completely valid and often very healthy way for people in an ace/allo relationship to go about things but oh my god i’m so tired of it!  Because I don’t! Yes, I love making my partners happy! I don’t like giving my partners sexual pleasure!! At all!!! I used to (think I did) before I realized that boundaries are a thing that you’re allowed to have with people you love, and that’s definitely had a huge impact on how I feel about this sort of thing, but it just feels so damn ubiquitous and it’s infuriating. 

I’ve experienced this mostly in The Magnus Archives and Good Omens fandoms.  Jon is canonically asexual  and (as of S5) in a relationship and angels/demons are described as sexless with Crowley and Aziraphale’s interactions having a lot of queer subtext.  I have seen lots of wonderful and incredibly sensitive portrayals of asexuality in fic (and art too, but i’m focusing on fic here) both with and without a sexual component.  But (esp in magnus in my experience) there are so many fics where the ace character saying “I like making you feel good” feels like it’s dropped in because the author just wants to be able to write their porn without putting much effort into thinking about or engaging with asexuality.  Which, I get it, that’s totally fine, the pwp tag exists for a reason.  And I go to a fair amount of effort to police my own experience wrt content I’d rather not consume.  But seeing it so frequently is kind of disheartening as an ace person who frankly would rather not make my partner “feel good” in that way. 

It feels very much like asexuality is ok as long as it doesn’t actually affect allosexuals in any tangible way.  Like, there’s the whole “I don’t find you sexually attractive” hurdle when you’re dating an allo person, but if the ace person is still down for sex (and there are ace people who are) then you can kind of ignore the more internal aspects of asexuality.  As long as the ace person is still happy to make their partner “feel good” then the allo person doesn’t actually have to engage in asexuality or how our sexuality affects our relationship with our bodies, our self worth, and the people we choose to date.  But it does! I didn’t realize for the longest time but my relationship with sex (and my body as a sexual tool) is COMPLETELY different than an allosexual’s.  It took me so long to realize in part because I thought that as long as I could still go through the motions and make my partner “feel good” then what did it matter? I could get into a whole thing about that, and maybe I will some other time, but my main frustration is this:

I often see fics where the allo character will ask their ace partner if they’re sure they’re ok with having sex, that they don’t want them to be uncomfortable.  And the ace character replies “don’t worry about it, I like making you feel good” or something similar.  Which is lovely as a display of communication and consent when it’s an actual conversation between two autonomous adults.  But when it’s 80% of the fics that deal with asexuality at all, it sends kind of a strong message that that’s the expectation.  You can be ace as long as you can still perform sex adequately and as long as you’re willing to put your partner’s sexual pleasure before your [preferred alternate activity/ comfort/ mental health]. 

What if the response was “Actually, no, I’m not ok with this.  I know I said I was earlier but upon closer reflection I’m actually really uncomfortable, can we not do this now or maybe ever again”? It doesn’t lend itself well to smutfic, which I understand is often the point of the thing, but it’s so incredibly gratifying the rare times you find it.  To have our comfort put above our partner’s sexual pleasure is (in my limited experience) so rare and so precious, and I feel like i only see it from ace creators (or very occasionally from allo people already in an asexual relationship). 

I think what I really want in my heart of hearts is for some allo creators to acknowledge that yes, actually, our comfort is more important than their sexual gratification.  Whether that comes in the form of fic I can enjoy without pushing through nausea and intrusive thoughts, or the potential future interaction where someone (an actual allo person with sexual desires) is accepting and supportive of a me (an actual ace person with firm boundaries). 

And again, I cannot stress enough that this is an expression of my own frustrations, not a condemnation or accusation.  But, to be honest, the fact that I feel the need to bend over backwards to assure allo creators that they can continue to make porn whose content makes me uncomfortable is just indicative of this whole thing, because apparently i’m a parody of myself

(and there’s a whole other post in my about the difference between “I’m having sex because its an activity I enjoy” and “I’m having sex because my partner likes it” but again different post)

TL;DR: having an ace character say “it’s ok, I like making you feel good” in order to write them into porn is all well and good, but is so popular in fanfic that it sometimes feels like that’s the only acceptable way to be asexual