Call Me Airnan

"it has to be perfect

Hiroshi Nagai's paintings need sunglasses to look at.

They look like how it feels to walk across a parking lot on a 98° summer day without a speck of shade in sight.

They look like heaven but also like you'd burn your bare feet on the ground.

Even when you can see shade you know it's not enough and the minute you step out you'll be burnt to a crisp like a vampire.

This feels like I could trip on that radio and fall right into that water, feeling the crystal waves as I drop in.

And this, a nice stroll down a resort strip, where my sunscreened skin could literally feel cooked if I leaned too close to the tiling.

And then a nice stretch of summer street, wherein you could see your face in the flushed red of that car provided it didn't blind you from its sunny reflections.

It’s easy to say that cyber bullying doesn’t matter in the real world or whatever but targeted online bullying campaigns have the power to wreck entire communities and support networks.

It’s difficult to just turn off your computer when all the people who relate to this aspect of your life are in there.

I’ve definitely met other asexual and arospec people irl but it’s quite rare. And real life queer spaces are in fact often bars or kink spaces. And like bully for you if you like kink or alcohol or romance but when your entire identity is based around not feeling the feelings often associated with romance and/or sex that’s not always super fun.

And people got relentlessly mocked for bringing up this issue. Shut down. Called childish. Like okay. Fuck us for wanting a sober non sexual spot to meet other queers, right? So childish for wanting options.

I’ve been involved in the online asexual community and doing education about asexuality and aromanticism in both irl and online queer spaces for almost fourteen years now and that short period of time around 2016-2018 took a wrecking ball to my people that I feel like we’ve still barely recovered from and I’m still angry about it.