Aro and Ace Avenue

Aro and ace activism is healthcare reform, so that no one needs to rely on a spouse for health insurance, so that healthcare is available to everybody regardless of income, so that no one’s lived experiences or basic dignity are dismissed or overridden by doctors

Aro and ace activism is well-funded and expansive public transit, so that you don’t need to have someone on hand to drive you places if you are incapacitated, so that you don’t have to pay for an ambulance if you need to get to the hospital quickly

Aro and ace activism is disability and elder care services, so that no one needs a spouse to care for them, so that no one needs children to care for them, so that marriage is not a bind for disabled people, so that people on disability who want to and can live alone can

Aro and ace activism is community-building, it’s public events, it’s free social activities, it’s mutual aid, it’s activities that bring community members together without socializing relying on just a romantic partner

Aro and ace activism is developing a culture of believing when people tell you who they are and what they want rather than assuming you know them better than they know themselves

Finally, France has abolished the law under which it's mandatory for married couples to have sex. (Source)

This comes after a French tribunal in a fault-bases divorce case attributed the blame solely to the woman because she did not want to have sex with her husband— after her health problems and the husband abusing her. She appealed, and in 2019 the French appeals court reiterated that the woman's "continued failure" to have sex with her husband constituted a "serious and repeated breach of marital duties and obligations".

She took the case up to the European Court of Human Rights, defending that the state has no business penalizing her for not wanting to have sex. Last year, against France's resolution, the European Court sided with her, adding that the very existence of a law that makes marital sex mandatory goes against sexual freedom and bodily autonomy. (Source)

This case was supported by the French feminist movement, under the statement "Marriage is not and must not be sexual servitude". The European Court's Resolution also came after the famous case of marital rape of Gisèle Pelicot (for many years, her husband drugged her and raped her and invited other men to rape her while she was unconscious, which at least 50 other men did and recorded themselves doing), which sparked new debate about marital rape.

The report in Parliament said: "Through the recognition of marital duty, French law has legalized having sexual relations under duress—in this case, under the threat of divorce for fault." And, in fact, a man in 2011 had been sentenced by a court to pay 10,000€ in damages for "lack of sexual relations" with his wife.

With the continued pressure from the feminist movement, and after years of fight, yesterday the French Parliament voted to abolish the law that made sex mandatory in marriages.

Titled "Asexual Resonances in History", this queer history zine contains quotes from historical figures who may have been asexual or on the asexual spectrum.

Inspired by Ela Przybylo and Danielle Cooper's paper Asexual Resonances: Tracing a Queerly Asexual Archive, the zine contains quotes that resonate with the modern understanding of asexual identities. Featuring real, historical people like King Kristina of Sweden, Emma Trosse, and Zinaida Gippius, this zine is an attempt to show how asexuality has always existed and will continue to do so.

right so there’s

- people who have kids

- childfree people

- people struggling with infertility

but there’s a secret fourth thing right. people who want to have kids but can’t because of some other reason, eg no partner (and couldn’t handle it alone), or disability that you’ve judged would impact your childrearing ability more than you can compensate for, or lack of family support, or poor mental health or executive dysfunction, or lack of financial resources, or lack of a job or housing or stability, or living too far from family support… just like…

the experience of any number of the myriad reasons a person might not be able to have kids (or have them now) other than literal infertility, but wanting them. childless-not-by-choice.

like. Yeah my partner is not down to raise kids with me and I got disabled by long covid, but even aside from and before that, I, as a big old lesbo, did not have a dude I felt comfortable asking for an old-fashioned sperm donation, and did not have the money to go to a sperm bank. It costs a fair amount of money to get knocked up if you're not doing it the traditional way! And if you're a gay guy who wants to hire a surrogate I imagine that's expensive and complicated too! And if you're not set on being biologically related to your kid and would be happy to adopt--well. Adoption agencies tend not to be super great about queer couples.

And I think that yeah there's a growing demographic of people with access to birth control and family planning who are barely scraping by saying "we can't afford to have kids," but also I think

people who have sex with the opposite sex (whether or not they're purely straight) can have accidents so much easier. And a lot of couples who end up accidentally pregnant might go "no we did the math this is impossible" but some of them go "we're gonna make this work somehow we want it too much."

and those kinds of accidents are much less common among queer people, so fewer of us get put in the position of "we said we couldn't but now I'm pregnant and I don't want to give it up, what now."

So overall the proportion of childless-not-by-choice people is much queerer than other segments of the population

and there's resistance to talking about it from both sides. Like. Homophobes don't want drag queens to read to kids at the library, let alone have and raise kids of their own, obviously. But on the flip side, there's a vein of queer culture that rejects the cultural norms of sort of, "cookie cutter" straightness. Like there's an idea that to come out and be properly queer you have to reject not only the idea of a traditional marriage to a partner you're not attracted to but also everything that goes with it, the picket fence and the 2.5 kids. So I think many queer people feel like if they talk about wanting kids, they'll be labeled as "too normie" or something.

I hope that'll change, that as same-sex marriage gets (and hopefully stays) legalized in more places, there will be more room for queers who want to raise families.

and i hope that all the other shit, the people who are getting worked to the bone and can't afford to take care of a kid even if they want to, I hope to see that particular societal ill get fixed in my lifetime.

And disability and mental health stuff--well case by case, everyone is different, but to be honest money would solve a lot for a whole lot of people.

please remember us when talking about neurodiversity. ocd, dyslexia, dyscaculia, personality disorders, tourettes, intellectual disabilities, schizo-spec disorders, etc. all fall under neurodiversity.

please stop saying neurodivergent when you mean "autism and adhd."

Obviously some folks will put significance on their own, personal experiences, or consider it to be like the highest form of intimacy/romance/etc, but also some folks think cooking together is the height of intimacy/romance/connection, some people put that insane amount of significance onto Hollidays or wacky traditions.

Nobody should be pressured to have/not have sex, nobody should be expected to put significant meaning on sex, the only sex folks should be worried about is their own (if they choose to have it) and if someone’s in a legitimate dangerous situation.

love as religion; am i doomed? / on aromanticism

alice's disability advocacy naturally led her to palestine solidarity as the quote from the blog post announcing 'crips for esims' illustrates:

We also recognize that everyone in Gaza is now disabled due to the massive number of deaths, new disabilities, life-threatening illnesses and destruction of medical facilities going on. Such destruction also debilitates the land, water, and air, which will impact Palestinians and all surrounding life for generations to come. We owe our kin in Palestine to throw sand on the gears of genocide with our every breath. [source: the disability visibility project]

since december 2023, crips for esims for gaza has raised well over $3.1M and bought and maintained over 5,000 esims, undoubtedly saving lives.

in the past few days there has been intense winter flooding in gaza. donate to honor alice wong's memory–to keep people connected, to give disabled people the tools to advocate for themselves, to refuse to let palestine be silenced.

If x label is close enough to your experience that you’d like to use it, then use it. If y label fits your experience perfectly, but you don’t want to use it, then don’t.

An article about how the experiences of many sex workers overlap with those of asexual people (particularly asexual people who have sex), and the way acephobic bigotry harms both groups. Solidarity with asexual people is not only necessary, it's also something I feel very viscerally as an allosexual sex worker who almost exclusively has sex with people I'm not attracted to.