in the first mini argument i had about the validity™ of aplatonicism, the person assumed that aplatonics are asocial hermits. sometimes i still see posts where people say they don't understand these identities because "how can you survive without connections?"

we're going to hear those words being thrown around a lot over the next few years. more than we already do, which is not an insubstantial amount. i want you to remember that you are not monsters, or fascists, or scum.

as more and more people throw around diagnoses they do not care to understand and words that they do not see as harmful, i want you all to remember that you are not alone and that the entire world is not against you.

there are people out there who care and understand and are not afraid. you are not alone, and you are not unloved.

dont let them make you fearful of yourself, you deserve so much better than that.

We don't think you need any specific type of emotion, feeling, or behavior to be worthy of being respected.

You don't need to feel love, sympathy, or empathy. You don't need to feel pity. You don't need to feel desire for connections, or any form of attraction.

You can make mistakes. You can hurt people sometimes. You can be "overly emotional" or on the flip side, "emotionless." You can be self-focused. You can be completely uninterested in socialization, or only interested in socializing for personal gain.

We just hope that you show kindness to others and own up to any mistakes you might make.

And even if you aren't kind, and you don't own up to mistakes, we wouldn't ever say "you don't deserve to exist."

Please never interpret any of our words as "[insert type of person] doesn't deserve to exist."

asexual people shouldn't be forced into sexual relationships!!

aromantic people shouldn't be forced into romantic relationships!!

aplatonic people shouldn't be forced into platonic relationships!!

afamilial people shouldn't be forced into familial relationships!!

asocial people shouldn't be forced into socializing!!

id under cut

Or queer relationship

Many people just use the general Queer flag(s) to indicate these ( like in this Queerromantic Demisexual combo flag ) but I did find some terms for you that have their own flags !!

Queersexual from the Queerpedia wiki

Queeromantic, coined by teamsharoncarter-archive / shewhowillrise

( Queerromantic with two “r”s seems to have a different definition / application coined by Empty Closets forum user omnisexual, it has no existing flag though. )

Queeric by imoga-pride ( general flag which encompasses and can represent all of these. if you're fine with a less specific representative flag )

Queerian / QLQ by beyond-mogai-pride-flags

The Golden Orchid association (1644-1949) - a group of women in China that included lesbians, bisexuals, and “women who wanted to avoid both marriage options, and any romantic or sexual partnership” that today we would call asexual or aromantic. 

Another Golden Orchid association link (which, interestingly, describes what appears to be a poly relationship). 

Personal experience of a queer-identifying person noting that aces were part of the bi community in the 80s and 90s.

A book published in 1999 supports the previous link of someone’s personal experience, and notes that asexuals could be considered part of Kinsey’s “Group 3″ (the bisexuals) because they were “about equally homosexual and heterosexual” and “have no strong preferences for one or the other” just like bisexuals. 

Another book that supports the personal experience source by noting that asexuals were considered part of the bisexual “Group 3″, which was published in 1999.

Another post of someone’s personal experiences of asexuals being part of the LGBT+ community in the 90s. 

A source from 1999 noting that, while some female-female relationships in the early to mid-twentieth century were obviously lesbian relationships, not all of them were, but that it would be a mistake to label them all “friendships”. It specifically notes that asexual partnered relationships also existed. 

This book describes a series of interviews done in 1990 by Catherine Whitney who interviewed heterosexual women married to gay men, and found that they were often asexual. It also describes how, in 1990, Ann Landers (a very popular advice columnist) asked her readers if married couples could enjoy a full life without sex and was flooded with 35,000 responses from people of all ages who had little or no sex and didn’t miss it. It also describes how “Boston marriage” was originally coined with a not-necessarily-always-accurate implication that such a relationship between women was nonsexual, but that later on the assumption was reversed to imply women in a sexual lesbian relationship, and how that caused some women involved in such relationships to hide the asexual nature of their relationships for fear of being called frauds by the larger lesbian community.

This 1997 book that states “To be a Kinsey 3 (bisexual) is to be equally attracted to men and women, i.e. completely bisexual…it is also to be equally unattracted to men and women, i.e. completely asexual. Bisexuality is never about two, only about one – asexual, or self-fulfilling – or three – continuously and equally attracted to both men and women”.

Proof of asexuality being considered as a concrete, distinct orientation before 2000:

One of the first online posts about asexuality in its current use, was made in 1997. 

A study on anorexia and bulemia in gay and bisexual men done in 1999 found that 58% of anorexia patients were asexual. 

The 1997 Australasian Gay & Lesbian Law Journal mentions asexual as a “relevant sexual identity”.

A 1983 issue of the Journal of Sex Research studied the Mental Health Implications of Sexual Orientation among heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual people. 

The article “Asexuality as Orientation: Some Historical Perspectives” describes different historical studies on asexuality, including a study from Johnson in 1977 where the word asexual was used to describe women “regardless of physical or emotional condition, actual sexual history, and marital status or ideological orientation, [who] seem to prefer not to engage in sexual activity”. It also describes a 1980 study by Storms who included asexual as one of four orientation categories when mapping out sexual orientation. It also describes a 1983 study by Nurius that found out of 685 participants, 5% of males and 10% of females were asexual. It also describes a 1990 study by Berkley et al. that included questions “related to homosexuality, heterosexuality, and asexuality” and included four items (out of 45) that were specific to asexuality. 

This book published in 1922 contains a lot of what I personally would describe as narcissism and pseudo-science, but acknowledges asexuality nonetheless: “In addition to the ordinary distinctive males and females, we have asexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, and old women of both sexes.”

This book from 1996 that notes “A transsexual may have a heterosexual orientation, a homosexual orientation, a bisexual orientation – or an asexual orientation” and clarifies that “a very small number – are asexual or bisexual.”

This book mentions a study by Malyon in 1981 that noted the options available to gay and lesbian teenagers choosing whether, or how, to come out by “[describing] three possible modes of adaptation in adolescence: repression of sexual desire, suppression of homosexual impulses in favor of heterosexual or asexual orientation, or a homosexual disclosure.”

Kinds of oppression that asexuals face:

Eunjung Kim wrote a chapter titled “How Much Sex Is Healthy? The Pleasures of Asexuality” that describes how “the absence of sexual desires, feelings, and activities is seen as abnormal and reflective of poor health” in Western contemporary culture “because of the explicit connection between sexual activeness and healthiness” and argues that “medical explanations of asexuality as an abnormality that has to be corrected constitute a large part of the stigmatization and marginalization experienced by asexual people.” It also discusses the ways in which some groups, specifically Asian American males, that are desexualized can erase the space for asexual Asian American men to simply exist.

Asexuals also face sexual harassment, rape threats, corrective sexual assault, and corrective rape (which, no, is not a lesbian-only term according to actual South Africans) specifically because they are asexual. 

There was a recent study by the AAU to identify sexual assault on college campuses, and broke down the responders to their survey by sexual orientation, including asexual. The results clearly show that asexuals are not immune to unwanted sexual contact, stalking, intimate partner violence, or sexual harassment.

A chapter of “Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives” that notes the specific way that asexual people are talked to/about: “Because asexual difference cannot be iterated in the linguistic field where sex and a sexed position dominate the discourse of sexuality and desire, the asexual subject is linguistically and visually dismantled and reconstructed in the position of a fetish object. This fetishistic conversion happens because the asexual person is made into an image, or spectacle, for consumption.” and “The difference between the unassailable asexual (someone who lacks all of the traits commonly blamed for asexuality such as past history of abuse, disability, etc.) and the spectacular asexual is that while the unassailable asexual allegedly makes asexuality digestible for a skeptical public and presents an accessible image, the spectacular asexual is always consumed as a fetish object, regardless of mental health, ability, and gender.”

The study “Intergroup bias toward “Group X”: Evidence of prejudice, dehumanization, avoidance, and discrimination of asexuals” is exactly what it sounds like. The article’s abstract states: “In two studies (university student and community samples) we examined the extent to which those not desiring sexual activity are viewed negatively by heterosexuals. We provide the first empirical evidence of intergroup bias against asexuals (the so-called “Group X”), a social target evaluated more negatively, viewed as less human, and less valued as contact partners, relative to heterosexuals and other sexual minorities. Heterosexuals were also willing to discriminate against asexuals (matching discrimination against homosexuals). Potential confounds (e.g., bias against singles or unfamiliar groups) were ruled out as explanations.”

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality describes many issues that asexuals face, including: how asexuality is seen as “invisible” and lends to people thinking it does not exist, how asexuality is actively erased as “unimportant” or not its own identity, the explicitly and implicitly negative messages associated with a lack of sexual attraction, the fear asexuals face when they believe there is something physically or psychologically wrong with them for being asexual, the belief asexuals face about how they must be deeply flawed since they do not conform to other sexual identities, how asexuals face cultural ideologies that sexuality is biologically based and ubiquitous (that all humans possess sexual desire) and that don’t acknowledge asexuality, that to describe oneself as asexual is a statement of moral superiority or purity or failure to find a suitable partner, that asexuality is an immature state they will “grow out of”, that asexuality is a description of action or a preference, that asexuality is unnatural or unhealthy or has to be a symptom of something else, etc.

Asexuality has been shown in the media in a negative light for decades, reflecting the idea that (for various reasons steeped in classism and racism) any woman who wasn’t willing to marry and procreate was a threat to the status quo, as seen in this 1955 book that notes: “Women who did not marry incurred political and social scorn for another reason. The influx of eastern and southern European immigrants in the United States pushed the question into eugenic terms–the wrong people were reproducing. Educated women came primarily from white middle- and upper-class stock, the most desired element by dominant social norms. When these women refused to marry and reproduce, they forced a new concern into the public discourse. it is not a coincidence that the stereotypical asexual unmarried older woman emerged at this time as a source of popular humor.”

Some people in some religions are very explicit about hating asexuals specifically because they are asexual, seeing asexuality as “a perversion akin to homosexuality and bestiality”. 

Other religions see asexuals as actually sinful if they choose not to have sex with their spouse.

While not every member of every religion looks down on asexuals, many people in portions of various religions choose to view asexuals negatively. 

Some people even recommend asexuals avoid being in a relationship with non-asexuals and assert that “promoting and trying to spread” asexuality, or behaving in an asexual manner, is wrong or unhealthy. 

Because of these religious beliefs about asexuality, that also opens up asexuals to discrimination in various legal ways, including (but not limited to) things like the new adoption bill in Texas. 

Asexuality was implicitly pathologized until very recently, and even now, the DSM-V states that a diagnosis of HSDD may not be given only if the patient has a preexisting knowledge of asexuality and chooses to ID that way.

TL;DR: 

Asexuals have long been considered part of the bisexual community. When people used to talk about bisexuals, it included asexuals because asexuals were the bisexuals too. Bisexual history is asexual history.

Asexuals have also long been considered as a stand-alone orientation that was part of larger non-straight communities and could be studied in comparison to other sexual orientations. 

Asexuals face many of the same issues that other marginalized orientations face as well as issues specific to their orientation. These include erasure, medicalization, misidentification, harassment, rape specifically targeted at them for being asexual, and religious intolerance, to name just a few.  

there is no baseline version of me, we are constantly changing as human beings

the me before this experience… didn’t have this experience

infact, after becoming a robot for months I have learned a lot, and whenever I feel something I appreciate it a lot more

please, fellow anhedonic beings

if you can’t feel love right now, please know it’s still there you just can’t feel it.

please keep going

if you’re not able to feel happiness

please keep going

Sadness?

please keep going

Anything at all?

please keep going

If you give up, you’ll never be able to look back on this experience and say “wow..I survived that”

I have plenty of emotions, but most of the time they feel very muted. They always have, even when I was a kid. When I remember my childhood, I honestly can’t tell if I ever liked anything I used to do, or of I was just going along with the path of least resistance because none of it mattered to me all that much. I don’t have many memories colored by emotions other than boredom or feigned interest out of consideration for someone else.

It’s like I’m living in perpetual boredom. All the time, only ever being mildly engaged with the world and people around me. Recreation is more distracting than fun, and the things that do pull me in tend to be different than most people, so it’s usually simplest to pretend I’m Just Like Them. It never takes long for that interest to fade, anyway, so why talk about it?

Non-Christians sometimes ask, “what if you’re wrong and there is no God? What if you’re wrong and Jesus was a fraud or some mythologized preacher? Doesn’t that make a lifetime following these arcane rules and praising an absent creator wasted?”

I make no secret of my perspective: I am a Christian who believes that there is a God and that Jesus was his son. However, I would be persuaded by these arguments if I agreed with the following presuppositions:

1. That we only prayed and gave charity to please God as we would please a human being.

2. That Christian practice did not hold innate value for believers and was only relevant in relation to entry into an afterlife.

3. That a life spent in nonviolent fulfillment could be wasted.

But, as it so happens, I disagree with all of these. I’ll break down why, starting with the first and second, as the two are strongly connected.

As a Christian, I believe that there is something called Natural Law. This means that human beings have an innate sense of morality, of right and wrong, that tells us that certain behavior is good to do and certain behavior is bad to do. It differs from instinct, in that it often overrides it (our desire to help a drowning person may overpower our instinct for self-preservation, for example). And although it may differ in interpretation across history and country, it’s hard to imagine a society where cowardice is applauded and charity is discouraged.

Also, as a Christian, I believe that this guiding force is the spirit of God themself. That God is the embodiment of these virtues, and by treating our neighbors with kindness and giving away our wealth, we become closer to them.

Therefore, through Christian practice, we seek to approach the Ultimate Good. Through prayer, we praise and communicate with the embodiment of these values, that no morally sound atheist would deny. By following the teachings of Christ, we attempt to become closer in line with the moral law that pervades all of human culture. And what you and I may call, “pleasing God”, is, in reality, reaching towards the core of goodness itself.

So, then, we are not pleasing God as we would please a human being, but are aspiring to the height of all that is good; we are attempting to reach their level, so to speak (see Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”) So, there’s the first presupposition settled, which makes the second one easier to rebut: kindness, charity, forgiveness, the setting aside of ego, have immediate, valuable effects on human lives, arousing joy and comfort in both the giver and the receiver. The fact that we are doing these for God’s sake changes nothing, as, to us, goodness’ sake and God’s sake are one.

As for the third presupposition, this is less something I can make a theological argument about and more something that I will just have to disagree firmly with my opponents on. I hold, with Albert Schweitzer, that life is the ultimate good, and that reverence for life should guide us morally, whether we are Christians, or Hindus, or Atheists, or anything else. In this respect, I do not believe that a life that has not significantly damaged the lives of others, that has not spent their days disregarding the dignity of others, could ever be wasted.

The history of political authority in the West* tells us that, whenever secular governments are made up of a nondiverse group of people, the rights of those who are excluded become threatened.

For example, in governments overwhelmingly run by men, women’s voices are ignored: we have assaults on reproductive rights, the enabling of rape culture, and disenfranchisement. In governments that are made up of predominately white people, we see racist policies and a lack of concern towards communities of color. In governments run almost entirely by people of one religion, we see oppression of religious minorities, for example, Europe’s long history of antisemitic and anti-Roma policies.

I don’t think that church government is any different from political government in this sense. In fact, we cannot draw a distinction between secular and religious governments based on politicization, as religion informs society and our political beliefs, and is therefore inherently political. People have used Christianity to justify both left and right-wing policies, but either way, our religious beliefs bleed into our political lives, thus affecting the lives of others.

This is why I believe it’s just as necessary to strive for diversity in the clergy as it is to strive for diversity in the secular government.

If we have a church led by only white men, for example, their perspective will predominate. Their perspective has limits, and we will only get one view of faith. Historically this view has allowed the church to be complicit in queerphobia, racism, and sexism. This is not to say that white men can’t make great, compassionate Christian leaders of course (Dietrich Bonhoeffer and St. John of the Cross are two of my biggest inspirations), only that humans are flawed, and that a homogenous group will act in its own interest over others.

If we want the church to be compassionate to marginalized people, we have to give them a voice in church politics. This means uplifting the voices of people of color. Most controversially, it means the ordination of women and LGBT people.

We are commanded to love our neighbors, but we have to understand them before we can love them. Listening to the experiences of those different from us will only deepen our faith and compassion, the cornerstones of the Great Commandment.

but whats ALSO bad are the low/no-empathy people who spit on empathy and feelings and compassion and sympathy, people who overall just hate humanity and innocent people who feel empathy. the people who don’t give a single shit about anyone and anything or whatever they may be idk

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