Cicerothewriter's Blog

"𝐈 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐲𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐫𝐨𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐟 𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐝, 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐡𝐞𝐫. 𝐀 𝐬𝐞𝐱 𝐬𝐲𝐦𝐛𝐨𝐥 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝, 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝." -𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 "𝐢𝐭 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥" 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐚 𝐁𝐨𝐰 "𝐀 𝐬𝐞𝐱 𝐬𝐲𝐦𝐛𝐨𝐥 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠." -𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐲𝐧 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐫𝐨𝐞 Pre-stardom and newly named, 23 year old Marilyn Monroe poses for Philippe Halsman at the Hollywood Studio Club in Los Angeles, 1949.

One of my favorite pics.

The reason for this was very simple and very practical. In the very early AVEN and immediately pre-AVEN days, back before my time when the disparate ace communities were first finding each other and creating a public online network, there was a fair lot of exclusionist discourse. There are a lot of ways to be asexual, and the early community of course fell prey to the usual infighting about whether someone with a libido counts as asexual, whether someone who chooses to have sex can be asexual (usual tiring Purity Brigade Bullshit), whether someone without a libido counts as asexual (after all, if you have no sex drive, are you sure it's a matter of sexual orientation?), whether ace people count as lgbtq, all the usual nonsense. This worked out the way it pretty much always does -- the inclusionists "win", because exclusionists always break off into smaller and smaller communities so the largest group is, of course, the one where all different kinds of people stick together and welcome each other. And that was AVEN.

And when you're trying to have a strong community and somebody shows up at the gates saying, "hi, I think I'm asexual", it's a fucking horrible idea to start doubting their credentials. They saw the public definition and started calling themselves asexual; they're here, and now they're under the internal definition. An asexual is somebody who calls themself asexual. Sometimes, these people would be frustrated allosexuals, or people choosing to swear off sex, who might not fit the external definition of the term. We made sure that everyone knew the external definition, and there were always conversations about asexuality and how it affected our lives, if they asked us directly what we thought then we'd say "only you can know for sure" and then give our thoughts on the matter for as long as they asked for them, and other than that it wasn't anyone else's fucking business or anyone's place to judge. If people weren't nasty and didn't create problems, they could stay and call themselves whatever they wanted.

Many of these people who didn't fit the strict definition eventually left after receiving support and discovering more about themselves. Some stopped IDing as ace but became allies to the community. Some people who came in with the most "I'm a heterosexual girl who is angry at my boyfriend" intro posts you've ever seen in your life discovered that they were in fact ace and that the messages that society had taught them about sex and romance were simply not for them -- these are people who, in a gatekept community, would have been incorrectly ousted immediately.

And then there were people -- a LOT of people -- who found themselves in grey areas. People who said "okay, this community makes sense to me and is useful to me and I have so much in common with a lot of you, but not EXACTLY like you. However, what I experience may not be the strict default definition but it's an awful lot like these other members on the forum." And they formed sub-communities. The grey aces. The demisexuals. The aromantics and greyromantics. Through these dialogues, between subgroups who in a more exclusionary community would be arguing about who the "real" asexuals are and splintering off into their own communities away from all those stupid cishet fakers, we developed language to describe our similarities and differences. The sexual/romantic/aesthetic attraction model came out of these dialogues and it became so massively important to our understanding of asexuality that basically everyone in the ace/aro community describes themselves by it, as do a large number of people outside the community. The community made massive leaps ahead in just a decade or two by, well, being a community. By being a place where anybody who called the place home, and didn't bully other people in the home, was right. By being somewhere where anybody who saw "asexual: someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction" and thought "that sounds like a term with some use for me" was allowed to use it.

An asexual is somebody who does not experience sexual attraction.

An asexual is somebody who calls themselves asexual.

These definitions are not in conflict -- they are both, in concert, fundamentally necessary for a safe and vibrant community where we can protect, support, and learn about each other and ourselves.

Did you know?

Vincent starred as Oscar Wilde in a one-man play, and when it was condemned by anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, he denounced her right back, stating that Oscar Wilde had already come up with a name for her: "a Woman of No Importance".

Just so everyone knows: the discounts are still in place! (Because, frankly, the author could really use some cash right now, due to having to shell out much cash to deal with ongoing health challenges that are leaving her rather strapped. Details down here.*)

So anyway! If you're not located in the UK (where, unfortunately, we still can't sell direct due to Brexit [though I'm working on that!, may have found a solution at last, we'll soon see...]), please consider heading over here and seeing what we've got to offer!

There's a lot of ridiculously discounted stuff. The ebook bundles are all being held at their lowest price points for the duration (meaning specifically the “All The Wizardry” bundle, the Middle Kingdoms series bundle, the LGBTQ Pride collection, and the Feline Wizardry bundle—Even our “Give Me Everything You’ve Got” collection, which is the whole ebook store in one package, has had a bit knocked off. And naturally it all comes with our lifetime replacement guarantee. Lost your ebooks somehow? Changed readers? We'll send you new download links or swap your order's file formats at no charge. It just seems like a rational way to behave when you're not using your ebook-selling platform to fund a space program.

So can I possibly get folks to reblog this post so that those who might not have caught one of these sales before can do so now if they want to? Please & thank you!

And additionally: for those who’re already up to their necks in ebooks and don’t need more (or have got all of mine), but still want to help out with the local financial situation—if you’d like instead to drop something into my Ko-Fi, it’d be very welcome. And if you feel like doing this, I thank you very much in advance! 🙂

...So thanks again in advance, cousins and friends! You're all fabulous.

*Briefly: the other unexpected health junk that had been behaving itself during the spring continues to kick up cranky. (eyeroll) I don’t want to get into more detail than necessary about this (my mom used to refer to such behavior as “the Organ Recital”), but it’s an outgrowth of the internal problems that have forced me to give up long-distance travel. The MRIs and other diagnostics aren’t always something the Irish national health service pays for (depending on who referred you or recommended it). So over the last couple of months I’ve had no choice but to drop a four-figure amount of cash on this, and as a result I’ve fallen behind on my rent.

Want to pick up some bargains in the Ebooks Direct Summer Reading Sale? Here's where!

Got too many ebooks but want to drop something helpful in the pot? Here's my Ko-Fi.

…Not really so new. But different. Qwant is now the official search engine of the European Parliament, which dumped Google as part of a program to use less US technology.

The Creeping Flesh 1973 （1）