#selfihateyouithink

I’m not planning on doing a post on AVEN any more at this point, because I’m so far removed from that drama and that website that at this point it just feels silly, but yeah, we can talk about David Jay. That might as well be how I start my day.

Let’s start with the fact that these arguments, regardless of any truth to them, are always being made in bad faith. The argument is never “David Jay is a bad person and shouldn’t be in charge of AVEN (aside: is he actually in charge of anything any more? He’s not listed on the moderation team at AVEN any more), and you probably shouldn’t use him as a source of information about asexuality,” it’s always “David Jay is a bad person, and therefore asexuality is bad, and therefore all asexual people are bad.” One of those, given reasonable evidence (take note of that disclaimer, it’ll be relevant later), is a reasonable argument. One of those isn’t.

With that said, let’s break down the arguments under the cut.

If they’re saying “David Jay is homophobic!” what they most likely mean is “David Jay made a joke on an AVEN thread once that involved a slur that I don’t think he has the right to use!” Here’s the thread, which is a shitshow all the way down to be honest, but is peak 2003 Internet. User AVENguy is David Jay, and posts in the thread about changing a university LGBTQ+ group’s acronym to include the word f*g. Given that no such university group has any web presence at all, ever, that I can find (and in particular, Wesleyan University, which is the school Jay attended, seems to generally use queer for its services and student groups), I’m reasonably confident that is is meant to be a joke poking fun at the length of the extended acronym, which you’d think exclusionists would love given how much they love chopping that acronym off at the knees in defiance of all history and logic. Now, I’m not saying that it’s a joke in good taste. But it smells like a joke to me, and doesn’t get treated as one in the court of Internet opinion.

Whether Jay actually has the right to use that particular slur is, to my mind, up for debate as he has had relationships with men (I believe he’s currently in a committed polyamorous relationship with a man and a woman?). I don’t know whether he IDs as bi in addition to ace, although I know people on Tumblr have made that claim. I’ve never seen a source one way or the other. I don’t know whether he’s attracted to men. I do know that I’m 100% not interested in interrogating what words he does and does not have permission to use based on a detailed history of his relationships.

If they’re saying “David Jay is a misogynist!” what they most likely mean is “David Jay has had sex and didn’t enjoy it, and the way he talks about it in interviews is uncomfortable.” See this interview for an example of this. What statements like this get interpreted into is the classic exclusionist line of “asexual people are being manipulative if they have sex”. The way Jay talks about sex is definitely not the way that someone who isn’t ace would expect to talk about sex. It’s not the way that I talk about sex, as an asexual person. But I’m not uncomfortable in a “this man is definitely treating these women badly” way, I’m uncomfortable in a “oh boy, you were obviously making some choices here that weren’t great for you” way. YMMV.

I’ve also heard allegations that Jay was “documenting his sex life with his ex-wife on AVEN.” Given that 1) Jay has never been married, 2) I don’t have enough search terms to go on to find the threads in question, and 3) I definitely don’t remember seeing something like that back in the day when I was actually active on AVEN, I’m inclined to discount that, but it’s an argument that’s out there.

If they’re saying “David Jay is antisemitic!” what they most likely mean is “I don’t like the AVEN logo.” This is honestly one I’d never heard before, and I’m not confident that this is right. If David Jay has actually said or done something that is antisemitic, though, I’m not able to find reference to it. So I’m guessing it stems from something like this, in which an anon is calling out the AVEN logo as antisemitic (under the assumption that is is based on the pink triangle). AVEN’s triangle gradient logo is based on the Kinsey scale (see here for an example of this diagram in use). It is a reconfiguration of the Storms Model. The fact that it is the same shape as the pink triangle is coincidental.

I feel like there could also be a connection to the AVEN mod drama of 2015-2016 - at the time, AVEN’s forums had rules that were enforced in such a way that peoples’ threads would get locked for pointing out that something someone else had said was bigoted (under “personal attacks” rules IIRC). I don’t remember whether there were specific incidences around that rule with antisemitic hate speech, but it is possible. Striking this part because I’ve managed to pull up some of the old references to the mod drama (see here for some details) which was actually older than I remembered it being, and am not finding any references to antisemitism accusations. So it’s probably just the triangle, which again, has no connection to the pink triangle. Two things can be the same shape without being based off each other.

So there you have it. These are the crimes of which David Jay has been accused. I find the evidence to be specious and open to interpretation at best, and flat-out lies at worst. You can, of course, make your own judgement calls.

um

Glad I could help. Actually that was helpful for me too, since I didn’t realize just how many of those arguments were in seriously bad faith until I put that answer together so! Unfortunately, variations on those arguments have been going around for...mmm I want to say a solid ten or more years at this point? I know I was seeing them back when I was actually on AVEN. So do consider that when you decide how much to engage with them. 

(As a note, I also updated the section in that post about the mod drama, with some more correct information.)

Night Exhibition - almaasi

27k · NC-17

Summary: Welcome to the world's most generic museum. In the café, you'll find Dean, putting dinosaur cut-outs on his award-winning apple pies. In the gift shop, you'll find his snarky yet devastatingly handsome friend Castiel, folding t-shirts for a living. But Castiel has a second job as a night watchman, patrolling the marble halls and protecting the museum exhibits after dark. One night, Dean asks to tag along. He could never resist a crisp blue uniform, and he'll take any opportunity to have his friend show it off. It might take all night, one dance, and a playful sex act (or five) in a few unusual places around the museum before either of them realise... maybe Dean's interest was never about the uniform. And maybe their friendship was already something else.

featuring Dean’s uniform kink, agender + demisexual + autism-spectrum Cas, the hOLY SHIT W H A T kind of rimming, and a ton of really frickin cute fluff

a quote from my beta: "Um. So. That was one of the hottest scenes I have ever read in literally almost 16 years of fic. So. Congrats."

[about my DCBB fic promo graphic/summary]

oKAY so

reasons an apparent lack of demisexual!cas in my upcoming fic Duck Duck Boots is a valid complaint:

that’s what it looks like in the summary

but you underestimate the following things:

me knowing what i’m doing (wink wink nudge nudge???)

me wanting to change up the things i Always Write Every Time

me desperately wanting to try writing non-demi cas since literally frickin’ Try-Something Tuesday which i wrote in 2013 and being all but incapable despite my occasional efforts because At His Core, Cas Does Not Want To Do That

(but also like... me having every right to not write characterisations that agree with everyone??? in general, i mean, not you specifically)

reasons cas has sex the day he meets dean:

nOPE CAN’T SAY it’s spoilers

but suffice to say it’s because of CHARACTER CONFLICT and done on purpose

like............. that’s.......... what the story’s about..............

i’m not saying it’s good or correct or in-character that cas would sleep with someone right after meeting them, but first off, au cas is different to canon cas (as he should be, otherwise he’d go around stabbing people with angel blades when he’s meant to be raising ducklings), and second, the fact it’s an unlikely/impossible choice for him is Literally The Point™

anyway i just wanted to give an explanation and a reassurance in case your interpretation was bumming you out

there’s always a chance what i wrote might not agree with you anyway, but... y’know, that’s gonna happen sometimes. there’ll be plenty of other demi!Cas stories <3 (in fact just 2 days ago i finished writing a 35k demi!cas fic for Pinefest... which won’t be posted until ~February 2019) c:

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