Daisy

If people get pissed off about you "devaluing romance" or whatever, I don't care! It's not an inherently good or bad thing! It's just a thing that is good for some people and bad for others, but in general it's totally morally neutral! And that honestly goes for all types of relationships and attraction!

Romantic relationships are morally neutral. Sexual relationships are morally neutral. Friendships are morally neutral. Familial relationships are morally neutral. Queerplatonic relationships are morally neutral. Love is morally neutral.

Having or not having or wanting or not wanting any of those types of relationships is neither a good thing nor a bad thing! Just because something is a wonderful and positive influence in one person's life does not mean it is for another person's!

There can always be a platonic explanation.

There being "no straight explanation" is not the same thing as being lesbian or gay, bi or pan. An aroace man and an aroace woman in a QPR is neither gay not straight, it's queerplatonic.

Yeah I don't care if they're making out, that doesn't mean it's inherently rose. It could be entirely platonic, or entirely sexual, or entirely romantic.

Romance =/= sex, and sex =/= romance.

Attraction =/= action.

Aces can have sex, or not, because they have free will.

Aros can date, or not, because they have free will.

Apls can have friends, or not, because they have free will.

Afams can have familial bonds, or not, because they have free will.

Fuck society's rules about relationships!

Humanity is dependent on nothing, not friendship, not romance, not sexuality. There is NOTHING that is both universal to all of humanity and unique to all of humanity. STOP TRYING TO SAY THERE IS. THERE ISN'T.

Stop erasing and ignoring sex-repulsed, non-partnering, and black-stripe aces and aces in general.

Stop erasing and ignoring romance-repulsed, non-partnering, and green stripe aros and aros in general.

Stop erasing and ignoring friendship-repulsed, non-friending, and blue stripe apls (I believe that's the correct term please correct me if I am wrong!) and apls in general.

Stop erasing and ignoring family-repulsed afams and afams in general.

Stop erasing and ignoring aqps and asens and loveless/alove and all other aspecs.

Amatonormativity, allonormativity, and compulsory sexuality are the enemy. They hurt everyone, and you should always, always examine your own internal biases and do your best not to perpetuate them. (AND it's okay to mess up! It's hard to examine your internal biases! I mess up all the time! I still struggle to understand some a-spectrums but I do my best to be open to criticism and try to learn and grow!)

I don't really have a solid flow here, these are just a bunch of random anti-allonormativity vents that have building up for a while. Please forgive me if I overlooked or phrased anything poorly.

One of the only asexual activists is Yasmin Benoit, a Black woman. She has raised so much awareness for the community. She was the first asexual person to lead Pride in London, she started the #thisiswhatasexuallookslike movement and is THE leading voice for the community.

And you all will celebrate international asexuality day on April 6th but we wouldn't even have that if she hadn't cofounded it.

YOU, THE READER, FROM REAL LIFE

req'd by @singsongstudy

nah it happens you're fine

I wanna shake them in a jar and observe their reaction like a scientist

And it's that thing where you mentally place yourself as the second, auxiliary party to someone else that you consider to be "In Charge" of whatever space or occupation or responsibility you are assigned to

And when you are IN that mindset, it *feels* like you're being responsible. It *feels* like you're being respectful, and helpful, and contributing to the load.

But what you don't SEE- because it *feels* like deference- is that the other person who you're seeing as The Authority you report to- by being assigned that role, has also been assigned the invisible load of BEING YOUR MANAGER.

This is by FAR most commonly seen in husband-and-wife relationships, where the man says, "just tell me what I can do to HELP- you don't have to do it all by yourself, but it's like you won't even tell me when you NEED help. You just do everything and then get mad at me for not doing it first. I can help clean. I can help with the kids. I can help"

But I also see it- and am guilty myself of doing it- at work, at school, in public- that mental, "this is THEIR space, and i will be respectful and helpful to THEM"- without realizing that subservience in this manner isn't actually a good thing. That it actually shifts the burden of responsibility to the other person. That aspect was totally invisible to me.

I didn't understand that when I was told, "if you see something that needs to be done, just DO it", or, "take the initiative", what they ACTUALLY meant was, "I am not above you", or "you have equal say in what kind of environment you want to live or work in", or "I do not want full control over what happens here, I do not want to order you around, I do not want to be in charge, what I WANT is to co-command WITH you"

Being in The Assigned Authority position NOW, that is all so much clearer.

I am the senior member of my team at work, and now, every time I train a newbie, every time I finish catching them up to speed and giving them a list of everything that needs to be done, my next big hurdle seems to always be, "now take pride in the space when I'm not around". "Now don't assume I'll tell you when something is due or what orders to plan things in".

Now, having been on both sides of the struggle, I can appreciate the sticking points here

TO THE PERSON "IN CHARGE": The person deferring to you doesn't understand the invisible labor you're doing. They genuinely believe you know more, you WANT more, you see things they don't, and that they are being respectful and good by staying out of your way and waiting on your orders. THAT is the bit that's not clicking.

TO THE PERSON "WANTING TO HELP": "Help" implies that you are providing assistance to a problem that belongs to somebody else. Stop thinking like that. Understand that the problem belongs to BOTH of you equally, and consider what kind of shared space you BOTH want. What is your SHARED GOAL? Not THEIR goal, but a goal that belongs to you too. Own your space.

This is not a Commander-Lieutenant problem. This is a Partnership problem.

i think i do this a lot, thinking of myself as inferior

and in a lot of situations i do have less experience, but im still an adult.

last year i went on vacation with my big sister. and looking back on it i acted like a kid. my sister did all of the planning, figured out routes, bought tickets everything. i mean, shes done this before, shes been in this city before, she knows what shes doing.

and it was a big experience for me, i have only been on vacation with my parents or on school trips where everything is decided for me. but i knew my sister had done this type of stuff before, going on vacation with friends, so naturally she knows everything.

we were both exhausted at the end of the week but i definitely did place an extra burden on her. ive realised it before partially, but this really helps in understanding it.

and i know the extra burden of being in charge because when i ran the farm with my sister for a week because my parents took vacation, i was the one with the management burden, and was very irritated by my sisters lack of knowledge and overview

anyway yay nico di angelo [boost my tiktok post here]

so yeah, were does that leave me

i just had progress pride instead of the philly pride i had the rest of the days