Avatrice supremacy

She said, “I think sexuality is an appetite. Like, I love cheese pizza. I could eat cheese pizza for the rest of my life. But if I’m starving and there’s pepperoni right there- well, I might have some pepperoni.”

And it struck a deep cord with me. We both identified as lesbian but had slept with dudes while accepting this. For me, I was a horny teenager in a small pseudo-rural town. My options were slim but I had a sex drive. I had a lot of bad sex with dudes. I had some okay sex with dudes.

I dated a dude for three years with both of us knowing full well that I wasn’t really sexually attracted to men when we got into a relationship. I fell in love and thought maybe the sex might follow and it didn’t. I tried different labels and some fit better than others. It’s still a coin toss whether I feel like queer or lesbian describes me best on a given day.

But much like eating a slice of pizza with toppings you don’t care for there was still aspects I could enjoy. Gender is like this. Sexuality is like this. It’s okay not to know, and it’s okay if you try things and it’s okay if you think you like pineapples but later your tastes change. It’s okay if you COULD eat some variety of pizza but it’s just not what you really want. It’s okay if you don’t like the pizza but you like the company that comes with it.

Okay. I’m going to assume that this is a good faith argument and engage with it as such, but also what you’re saying has been parroted at me by TERFs as well. You have just said that I don’t get to determine what my sexuality is because you don’t agree with the circumstances under which I slept with someone.

Let’s look at this from a different angle. If an ace person who does not experience ANY sexual attraction chooses to have sex with their allosexual partner- that’s not self harm. That’s them loving their partner and choosing to engage in an activity willingly. You don’t get to tell someone who’s ace that they’re not ace for sleeping with their partner. My sexuality refers to what sparks sexual attraction, but it does not mean I need to be disgusted by anyone who doesn’t fit that criteria.

Maybe there’s an ace person who is sex repulsed, who will not get any benefits from that experience. That is what you’re describing here. I am not advising with this metaphor that someone who is gluten intolerant eat pizza. If you HATE dudes, then this metaphor might not be for you.

Maybe this metaphor is for a trans person who does not experience dysphoria with their assigned gender, but experiences euphoria with their actual gender. Or a trans person who doesn’t like most aspects of their assigned gender but did like some parts of it. They don’t need to feel guilty or fully reject aspects that they did like, and I find it really shitty that so much of the queer community feels this intense rejection of things that don’t fit into their idea of a label.

I had sex with a dude I loved because he was my partner and I chose to be with him because I didn’t think sex was the end all be all of a relationship. His companionship was precious to me.

Moomin and Snufkin