opinions of an ex-asexual

Idk where this is coming from but Pride is about celebrating our ability as a group to survive and overcome homophobia and transphobia and to mourn those who we have lost along the way to violence and self hatred. To use such a political event to tell strangers (including minors, survivors, and LGBT people who are known to have complicated feelings around sexual attraction) “Hey, when I look at my boyfriend l don’t go, like, DAMN he’s hot,” is inappropriate at best.

But it only gets worse when you consider the actual history of pride and why it exists. Pride was created in the wake of the Stonewall riots and to commemorate them. Stonewall was a gay bar that was raided by police because at the time being gay (and trans) in public–being affectionate and even vaguely sexual in public–was illegal (as was violating the gendered clothing laws which required wearing at least 3 items of the “proper” gender which affected trans and gay people, bringing us together). We rioted for our right to exist as we are–to love as we are, to fuck as we are.

To take an event that is about reclaiming our genders, our love, our sex and turn into a demonstration about how much you don’t need sex or want love is to spit on the legacy of our riots, our demonstrations, our legal battles against sodomy laws and for our legal rights as fucking human beings.

When a fucking homophobe or transphobe looks at a gay man, a lesbian, a bisexual person, a trans person they don’t WANT us to fuck or marry or love each other. They are disgusted by the notion that we could ever love or fuck as purely as they do, seeing us as deviants, as predators. We fought and are fighting against the idea that we are ONLY sex and carnal desire while we simultaneously fight and are fighting for our sex and carnal desire to be accepted and seen as just as normal as that cis straight shit.

Don’t defang our radical moment about self love–and the loving of each other, quite explicitly–into a moment to overshare about how “I guess I’m ~quirky too because I’m, like, not sexually into strangers.” To do so is a bastardization of everything Pride was meant to be.

Pride is, in so many ways, being taken away from us  and the history legacy of the people who fought for it. Beer companies offer free tastes, preying on the alcoholism in the community. Military recruiters go, looking for our youth who might not be able to afford college or shelter without selling their souls. Cops march in our parade as if we weren’t throwing bricks at them and spitting on them when this all started.

And now cis straight people are testing out every possible way to make this about them. Kink groups, ace groups, even pedophile groups have preyed on Pride to make it about them too.

I won’t stand for this type of degradation. No one fucking cares if you feel sexual attraction or not. Not ever but especially not during OUR month where we fight for OUR love, OUR sex, our ATTRACTION.

Overshare on your fucking blog where you post about being ace and kinky at the same time or whatever but leave Pride the fuck alone, so we can scrape together a meaningful experience out of it while we can. Pride can be–IS–so fucking powerful but with thousands of eyes on it, searching for a way to reclaim it for cis straight people, companies, the institutions that hold us the fuck down, it gets hard to enjoy it sometimes.

LGBT people all have other identities that get other shit; unless those identities are tied to LGBT history or activism, they don’t really need to be mentioned at pride. Like, unless they are identities belonging to movements where LGBT solidarity is vital… it’s not really relevant. Like, if a lesbian held up a sign that just said, “I LOVE BEING A WOMAN!” it’d be like… that’s nice but uh… not quite relevant today. “I love being a woman who loves women” would make sense, if she’s trans it’d make sense, but like a cis woman–even a gay one–making Pride about loving being a woman would be… out of place. Especially if she as using her sign to invite cishet women to hold up :I love being a woman” signs.

Just like signs just about being ace don’t… make sense at pride.

I’m saying this as someone who could very, very easily identify as ~grey ace~ and ~grey aro~ and has identified as aroace in the past for several years.

“Why don’t we just cuddle?” or “Why frick frack when you can snick snack” signs don’t belong at pride.

This shit? CHILDREN holding these signs? Don’t belong at pride lmao.

FLAMING ASEXUAL SHIRTS DO NOT BELONG AT PRIDE. This should not be marching in front of STONEWALL. These signs and shirts have nothing to do with LGBT history or activism. It doesn’t work.

That’s the point I’m making. Cishets see this shit and further conflate LGBT identities with sex which is the opposite of what we fucking fought for. They think being LGBT is about your relationship to sex; that being bi or gay or trans is about sex, sex, sex.

she supports two horrible youtubers who are very vocal about how much they hate fat people, nonbinary people, and are just actively racist, transphobic, ableist and everything else. one of em even did blackface, to which vivziepop calls “an opinion” 

ShoeonHead has/had a black boyfriend.

and wow a white girl dating a black guy is still racist. i know this might be hard to understand, you being a nazi, but sometimes people date outside their race and are still sacks of shit

Sometimes it’s “I love your heart and love being intimate with you”

Sometimes it’s “Hey I got a boner out of nowhere and vaginas and a person with a sense of humor are more fun then my hand”

Sometimes it’s “It’s 50 bucks. I don’t kiss, and I don’t do weird shit.”

every exclusionist i know is like “yeah this is my ace discourse opinion but… its really not that serious”

and every inclusionist ive known makes it 800% too big of a deal, vagues, and blocks over it

like. homie. it’s not like exclus hate aces and want them to die or think they’re not real. but its almost… as if… most inclus…treat it like that…… for the “”“”“oppression”“”

Here’s an exclusionists telling aces to die (x).

Here’s another post detailing how the exclusionist movement is build around hating aces (x).

Your movement hates aces. You can either continue ignoring this fact or do something about it by calling out exclusionists when they do shit like this. 

So, after being in discourse hell for a long time and I’ve seen a bunch of stories (which I 100% believe and think are valid) where people have been afraid of being forced into treatment for their asexuality or have even been told to seek said treatment. And those stories are then used to terrify young ace people into thinking that treatment is a real threat. But, as far as I’ve seen, not a single one of those stories have ended with actual coerced treatment.

And that is because… there are no institutions that coercively treat asexuality. In fact, there are no institutions that treat asexuality, period.

Asexuality is not and has never been in the DSM. There is no recommended treatment for asexuality. And there is not a single institution that advertises that it will treat adults to “fix” their asexuality, let alone literal minors.

On the flip side, that simply isn’t true for LGBT conversion therapy. Stories don’t end with “I was afraid this would happen,” more often than not if someone is talking about their experience with conversion therapy… it actually happened. It was a fear made real.

LGBT Conversion Therapy is legal FOR MINORS in 45 states. It is legal for adults in every state. Institutions like NARTH (now ATSCI) brag about successful pray away the gay programs.

Asexual Conversion Therapy is not a thing. Conversations that imply it is real:

Do not understand what conversion therapy actually entails

Confuse HSDD (Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder) treatment with conversion therapy

Confuse the definition/symptoms of these illnesses with asexuality

Harm survivors/actually ill people by implying seeking treatment for  HSDD is anti-ace and a product of internalized aphobia when HSDD does not deal with asexuality at all

Aces are spreading these stories to convince people that aphobic oppression is real and it has another side effect: it ends up scaring actually ace people and creates a toxic environment where young people feel unsafe and can easily be manipulated. This is dangerous for people who are trying to figure out their identity and feel secure in it. You are hurting ace people by implying your irrational fear of treatment is based in a lived reality.

So, below the cut, I am going to:

Clarify what conversion therapy actually entails (trigger warning for medical abuse, obvs)

Compare that to the treatments of HSDD

Clarify what HSDD actually is

Talk about the timeline of asexuality becoming more known in the mental health field and how quickly the APA accommodated the ace community’s concerns

WITH! all my sources cited

so that instead of spreading stories where ace people (who have genuinely hurt by their parents and maybe do not know this fear of treatment is unfounded) only ever FEARED the POSSIBILITY of conversion therapy, people can understand there is no coherent reason to insist there is systemic medical abuse against aces. Spread this knowledge instead.

TL;DR:

To sum it up (you don’t really need to read below the cut, it’s just clarifying information): no one is lying when they say their parents maybe forced them into therapy or even to see a doctor for their asexuality. That may even qualify as abuse in and of itself in some contexts. But there is no medical treatment for asexuality and especially no forced treatment for asexuality in minors. Convincing young people it’s a real threat is harmful and doesn’t prove ace oppression anyways. It hurts aces and it hurts actual survivors of conversion therapy and it hurts people with certain conditions who need to be diagnosed so they can have treatment.

Anyways,

It does not mean cisgender heteromantic heterosexual. I would call this a myth if it were more pervasive than just something people in insular online circles tell themselves and each other so they can feel like they’re lgbt.

The reason for this is that a cishet ace or aro does not experience homophobia. Romantic and sexual attraction may be separate under the split attraction model, but they’re both forms of attraction. They might face interpersonal problems because of their lack of sexual or romantic attraction, but they don’t experience homophobia, and on a systemic level, cishet aros and cishet interact with society in the same way as cisgender heterosexual heteromantics.

and honestly if you call yourself GC/a radfem but still kiss the asses of trans people, you’re a massive hypocrite if you can’t see that the very act of “identifying” as the opposite/different sex is vile on multiple levels.

Rosie tried to kill themselves but they’re alive. They’re safe for now but they’re taking a break from tumblr for a while.

Tagging ppl so y'all can spread the word: @nonbicanary @2-tiddies @allobottomprivilege @allo-victor @incelbiian @bitchytransgirl

this is not right! as men and trans masc people we can do fucking better! trans people should all be together in solidarity. the behavior I’ve seen from a lot of yall is truly abhorrent and im disappointed in us. don’t just talk like you support trans women and trans feminine folks, actually ACT like it! That means actually LISTENING to them when they say something harms them or is transmysoginistic, instead of insisting you know better or, god forbid as some of yall have done, insinuate that they have “male privilege” for being transfeminine and don’t get a say in women’s issues. it’s disgusting!

exclusionists: I feel unsafe with cishets in my community and it so happens that some cishets are also ace

bi & trans people were literally the first to fight back at stonewall. trans women of color kicked off the organized political resistance to homophobia and transphobia that created our community.

we were not “let in” later, we have always belonged here. “the acronym” didn’t exist until later. in the 60s & 70s, terminology was different. bi people were just considered gay or lesbian, or “h*mophiles”, instead of “h*mosexuals”. trans people were often considered gay, or “inverts”. but, slowly, our ideas about gender and attraction changed. and as how we thought of ourselves changed, how we presented ourselves did too. so we moved from gay, or gay and lesbian, to glbt, and then to lgbt.