Sweetuality

Valentine’s Day kisses 10/10(!)

“You were talking with Nora and June, happy and animated and fully alive, a person living in dimensions I couldn’t access, and so beautiful. Your hair was longer then. You weren’t even a president’s son yet, but you weren’t afraid. You had a yellow ipê-amarelo in your pocket.

I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.”

Favourite scene from Any Way The Wind Blows for Baz’s birthday!

And an extra page of Simon playing with Baz’s hair because this is apparently my new favourite thing:

Love, A.

“You and me and history, remember? We’re just gonna fucking fight. Because you’re it, okay?”

- Alex, Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

That’s 1972

29 years before AVEN was started online,

and 47 years before the present.

And that’s only the date that Manifesto was written, so asexuals as members of a community must have existed at least some time before that.

The first use of the term ‘asexual’ that I can find is from 1907. Charles Schlegel, a german preacher in new orleans, was put on trial(?) by his church for advocating for gay rights (again, in 1907. this guy was badass) and this was his response in court:

“Let the same laws for all the intermediate stages of sexual life: the homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, be legal as they are now in existence for the heterosexuals.” (quote taken from ‘Minutes of the Presbytery of New Orleans’, spring meeting 1907)

He resigned, and was deposed from the ministry, but still. The guts on this man.

the first use of the definition of asexuality (which is contested so this is my opinion only) was Emma Trosse’s pamphlet ‘Ein Weib? Der Konträrsexualismus in Bezug auf Ehe und Frauenfrage’ which was written in 1895.

The whole thing is written in german (and in frakturschrift) which I don’t speak very well at all so if there are any germans out there who want to take a crack at it, you are welcome to it (and also pls send me your translations), but my approximate translation is as follows (emphasis added):

there is another kind of connection in Hymen’s realm. I’m talking about people without sensuality, it is only possible with them. A general laugh and head shaking. “Something like that does not exist. This is twisted, overstrained stuff. Human remains human. Nobody can go against nature.” […] When he’s gone, she longs for him, for his presence, his conversation, not for his embrace, his kisses, at least not kisses like the ones he usually gives. She loves his spirit, his soul, not his body.

What she’s talking about here is, as far as I’m concerned, romantic asexuals, or even QPRs, relationships between someone who doesn’t feel sexual attraction or desire, but still loves their partner. “this “apparently without sensuality” is perhaps the most intense degree of sensuality that lies over the body” says Emma Trosse and I’m inclined to agree.

1895.

First mention of asexuality (bc that’s what it is really) was from only 3 years after the first use of ‘homosexual’ in english and well before ‘gay’ was used to describe same-sex attraction.

And by the way - I'm @/laura.art77 on Instagram!

I just felt like I needed some cute snowbaz in my life at the moment

Domestic Snowbaz: a telling with instastories