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@aroacevibes-07
Welcome to my blog! :)
Hey there!
This is my side blog about aromanticism and asexuality. TW: mentions of amatonormativity, aphobia, etc.
Visit my other side blog for daily aspec memes.
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My main blog (about art, fandoms, OTPs, writing, autism, etc.)
English isn't my first language, so I apologise in advance for any errors.
Hope you're having a wonderful day, and thanks for visiting my blog!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
There’s also a thing that people who think they’re being accepting do where they go “Not wanting romance is SO SAD AND LONELY! Not wanting to read romance novels is SEXIST! Not wanting a partner makes you a FREAK! Not having sex with your partner is BAD and ABUSIVE! Not feeling sexual attraction to your partner means there is SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU!… unless you’re aromantic or asexual, of course! Then you get a pass.” The only acceptable reason to deviate from the amatonormative and sexnormative societal norm is to claim an identity label that exempts you. The actual thing you’re doing is still bad… but don’t worry it’s OK for you to do it! It feels like, we haven’t actually challenged any norms at all, you just get a pass on them because you can’t help it, poor thing. If you have the capacity to feel these, you have the obligation to; you are only exempt if you claim an identity that says that you are unable to. It implies that we would if we could, but we can’t, and it’s merely unfair to punish us for our shortcomings. Romance and sex are still social requirements, that hasn’t changed, we just are allowed a pass on it because we are unable to meet them. (And we’re still expected to reassure everyone that of course we recognize that their romance and sex is far more important than anything we will ever be able to have!)
I don’t want aros and aces to get special exemption from the requirement to have romance and sex and romantic attraction and sexual attraction; I want that to not be a requirement for anyone.
very much the same vibe as people who look down on someone who displays signs of neurodivergence until/unless they disclose their disability
By which I mean the solution is the same: you gotta unlearn that for everyone, not just people who meet your exemption criteria
There’s also a thing that people who think they’re being accepting do where they go “Not wanting romance is SO SAD AND LONELY! Not wanting to read romance novels is SEXIST! Not wanting a partner makes you a FREAK! Not having sex with your partner is BAD and ABUSIVE! Not feeling sexual attraction to your partner means there is SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU!… unless you’re aromantic or asexual, of course! Then you get a pass.” The only acceptable reason to deviate from the amatonormative and sexnormative societal norm is to claim an identity label that exempts you. The actual thing you’re doing is still bad… but don’t worry it’s OK for you to do it! It feels like, we haven’t actually challenged any norms at all, you just get a pass on them because you can’t help it, poor thing. If you have the capacity to feel these, you have the obligation to; you are only exempt if you claim an identity that says that you are unable to. It implies that we would if we could, but we can’t, and it’s merely unfair to punish us for our shortcomings. Romance and sex are still social requirements, that hasn’t changed, we just are allowed a pass on it because we are unable to meet them. (And we’re still expected to reassure everyone that of course we recognize that their romance and sex is far more important than anything we will ever be able to have!)
I don’t want aros and aces to get special exemption from the requirement to have romance and sex and romantic attraction and sexual attraction; I want that to not be a requirement for anyone.
The freedom to do a thing means nothing without the freedom to not.
There’s also a thing that people who think they’re being accepting do where they go “Not wanting romance is SO SAD AND LONELY! Not wanting to read romance novels is SEXIST! Not wanting a partner makes you a FREAK! Not having sex with your partner is BAD and ABUSIVE! Not feeling sexual attraction to your partner means there is SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU!… unless you’re aromantic or asexual, of course! Then you get a pass.” The only acceptable reason to deviate from the amatonormative and sexnormative societal norm is to claim an identity label that exempts you. The actual thing you’re doing is still bad… but don’t worry it’s OK for you to do it! It feels like, we haven’t actually challenged any norms at all, you just get a pass on them because you can’t help it, poor thing. If you have the capacity to feel these, you have the obligation to; you are only exempt if you claim an identity that says that you are unable to. It implies that we would if we could, but we can’t, and it’s merely unfair to punish us for our shortcomings. Romance and sex are still social requirements, that hasn’t changed, we just are allowed a pass on it because we are unable to meet them. (And we’re still expected to reassure everyone that of course we recognize that their romance and sex is far more important than anything we will ever be able to have!)
I don’t want aros and aces to get special exemption from the requirement to have romance and sex and romantic attraction and sexual attraction; I want that to not be a requirement for anyone.
The aro/ace community is seen as sexually and romantically disabled and it is destructive to everyone.
There’s also a thing that people who think they’re being accepting do where they go “Not wanting romance is SO SAD AND LONELY! Not wanting to read romance novels is SEXIST! Not wanting a partner makes you a FREAK! Not having sex with your partner is BAD and ABUSIVE! Not feeling sexual attraction to your partner means there is SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU!… unless you’re aromantic or asexual, of course! Then you get a pass.” The only acceptable reason to deviate from the amatonormative and sexnormative societal norm is to claim an identity label that exempts you. The actual thing you’re doing is still bad… but don’t worry it’s OK for you to do it! It feels like, we haven’t actually challenged any norms at all, you just get a pass on them because you can’t help it, poor thing. If you have the capacity to feel these, you have the obligation to; you are only exempt if you claim an identity that says that you are unable to. It implies that we would if we could, but we can’t, and it’s merely unfair to punish us for our shortcomings. Romance and sex are still social requirements, that hasn’t changed, we just are allowed a pass on it because we are unable to meet them. (And we’re still expected to reassure everyone that of course we recognize that their romance and sex is far more important than anything we will ever be able to have!)
I don’t want aros and aces to get special exemption from the requirement to have romance and sex and romantic attraction and sexual attraction; I want that to not be a requirement for anyone.
Fun fact, being asexual is one of the ways to avoid getting labeled with hypoactive sexual desire disorder.
Cool!
You have a disorder unless you know the magic word!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
hi reminder that aromantic people don’t have to compensate for their lack of romantic attraction with familial or platonic attraction. “aros still love their friends!!” sometimes they do. other times they don’t, and that’s okay! using exteramo attraction as a stand-in for romance invalidates loveless, afamilial, and apl folks. we don’t have to make up for our existence :3
And also there's no still. As above, sometimes we do, but I don't love the people I love as some kind of consolation prize or shadow of romantic love (and also, gross, some of that's my family). It's completely unrelated to that; there's no still loving my friends, no just friends, romantic affection and other kinds of affection are not inherently entertwined or linked or ranked or whatever. This is one of those things that just gets more rotten the more you unpack it.
Besides, just because someone is capable of loving friends/family/etc. doesn't mean they do. Sometimes families suck. Sometimes people are alone, long term or short term, because their friends let them down (or they let their friends down), or life circumstances happened, or they struggle with making friends. The potential crossfire (and friendly fire) for tossing off 'aros still love their friends' is so big! And I say this as an aro who very, very much has loved many of my friends, and those members of my family who are endeavouring not to suck.
(I also would not ever refer to or conceptualize the emotions/affections/relationships I have with regard to family/friends as familial attraction or platonic attraction so even the people who 'do' are still not easily slotted into the 'good aro' model some people seem to have going on.)
I'M DOING AN EXPERIMENT
To prove something to a friend, please
REBLOG IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES
LIKE IF YOU THINK ASEXUALS DON’T BELONG IN LGBTQ+ SPACES
REBLOGGING SO HARD.
Fuck in sorry I liked it on accident I didn’t mean to I’m sorry asexuals belong I’m so sorry please don’t hate me
SHIT I UNLIKED IT I SWEAR IT WAS JUST REFLEXES
Shit I just liked it. It’s reflexes I promise!!!
Why are y'all reflectively liking in the first place?
I can’t speak for everyone but I know my prehistoric brain’s default protocol for seeing a post I enjoy is to like and reblog I’m like a little factory working going through the motions any time I interpret a post as ace-positive
More reblogs than likes i see. Keep it going folks
So glad I held myself back from hitting the like button
bark bark THE LIKE REFLEX IS PAINING ME. I CANNOT LIKE BUT MY BRAIN WANTS TO BECAYSE I LIKE THE FEELING THE PHONE MAKES WHEN I DO IT
Me using the power of my ancestors to stop myself from hitting the like button, like other posts
“Friends don’t look at each other like that” should not be about love. It should be about looks of disgust, of hate, of disdain. “Friends don’t look at each other like that” because a real friend would care about you more than that.
It should be a way of saying a character is a fake friend
recently saw a comment section full of people, primarily women, talking about loving living with their best friend and being sad about having to live separately one day. some people talking about missing living with their best friend, some talking about “getting” to live with their best friend “until” they find partners. saw one person mention that moving out to move in with a partner felt like a divorce. it makes me so genuinely sad… all these people recognizing the joy they can find living outside the norm, letting themself live with a friend instead of a romantic partner, but still feeling like they have to live with a spouse eventually. like it’s not even a decision, just an inevitability.
similarly, it makes me sad when someone shares their happiness from living with a friend with others and the biggest response is people insisting/assuming they must have a secret unrecognized romantic connection. just taking over a moment of joy to insist they’re wrong about their own life and feelings; all to reinforce the lifestyle everyone is already expected to conform to eventually…
Sex is optional. This is true for everyone, not just asexual people.
Romance is optional. This is true for everyone, not just aromantic people.
friendship is optional. this is true for everyone, not just aplatonic people
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Some positivity for u lot!
I love ace ppl bc they’re like you know you don’t have to right. And it’s true. you dontttttt have to
[ As long as people don’t know about asexuality—hell, forget about the label, so long as they don’t know that saying no forever and for any reason and in any context is okay—sex education, sex therapy, and popular depictions of sex are incomplete and people don’t have the relevant information to fully consent. Sexual rights should not be assumed and self-determination must never end upon entering a relationship. You can give a no with zero caveats in each and every situation, full stop. You can say no if someone loves you and you love them back. You can say no for the rest of your life. ]
Angela Chen, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (2020)
Tbh I'm really moving away from sex-positivity and more into sex-neutrality as a label for my stance bc I'm kind of... exhausted?
I view sex itself as a neutral act. Not shameful, but not some Awesome Sacred Innately Good And Human thing. It is good for those who are impacted positively by having it. It is bad for those who are impacted negatively by having it. Its meaning and value is not objective but rather up to the individual to decide what it means to them. I am "sex positive" insofar as I think people should have the sex they want, and be free to express themselves. But I don't know, I'm a very private, low-libido black stripe asexual with a lot of bitterness about sexual norms and expectations and sex positivity as a movement largely doesn't feel like it cares about me or is at all for me. Sex is a thing. Do it if you want. Don't do it if you don't want. I'm pretty tired of moralizing in either direction about it.
My mother: I’m just saying don’t close any door yet!
Me, an aegosexual/aromantic: I’m not saying the doors closed I’m saying it’s not there in the first place
almost died after seeing this in comments
As an asexual aromantic identifying person, this exactly. Also, as someone who doesn't want kids and wants to either get rid of my uterus completely or donate it to a trans woman, the same thing. There is no door to close, you're looking at a really accurate painting of one that I did not put there, society did.
I feel like people struggle to understand that my life as an aorace person is not centered around an absence of relationships. There is no romance shaped void that I am trying to live with, or live around, or which my life's purpose is to fill somehow.
I go to university and I go to work and I volunteer in my community and in the in-between moments I drink tea with my friends and I plant tomatoes on my balcony and there is no need for anything else. There is no room for anything else anyway.
When I am asked how I deal with 'the hole in my life' or what I do with 'all my free time', I know these questions are not about me at all. They are a reflection of the person asking.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
you say lust is evil and a sin until someone is asexual and suddenly sex is natural and makes us human
My good people, I give you: Amatonormativity.
[ID: a series of images of a person with light skin and short hair, gesturing and speaking into a microphone. captions in the images read:
You and this perfect person who you’ve never met before, to come out of nowhere, fit your life perfectly, complete you and make you whole for the first time in your life, much like your mother did for me.”
And even though what he said sounds sweet or whatever, what it manifested in my seven-year-old brain was this, “If you are not with someone, you are broken. If you are not with someone, you are incomplete. If you are not with someone, you are not whole.”
And that’s not just something my dad made me feel, that’s something that we as a society have made every single child born in the last 40 years feel. Every Disney princess has a prince, every prince has a princess, every television show or movie always has a character in it that doesn’t want to be in a relationship. They’re happy with who they are. But then by the end of the series, guess what. They were wrong! They were wrong for wanting to be alone, what a fucking idiot. Everyone needs someone, yeah. It’s all to do with love.
And when you raise children in that world, where everything points towards love, when you’ve raised them for 18 fucking years, when we become an adult for the first time in our late teens and our early 20s, we’re so terrified. We’re so trying to be an adult that some of us will take the wrong person, the wrong jigsaw piece, and just fucking jam them into our jigsaws anyway, denying that they clearly don’t fit. I’m gonna force this fucking person into our lives, because we’d much rather have something than nothing.
Then five years later, you’re stood looking at a jigsaw you don’t recognize, being like, “Ah! There’s a fucking cunt in the middle of this.” And in that moment you have a very, very difficult question to ask yourself. Do I admit the last five years of my life have been a waste? Do I waste the rest of my life?
My generation has become so obsessed with starting the rest of their lives that they’re willing to give up the one they are currently living. We have romanticized the idea of romance, and it is cancerous. People are more in love with the idea of love than the person they are with. The worst thing you can do with your life is spend it with the wrong human being.
/ end ID]
