bluntly if the only time you ever mention asexuality is to praise asexuals who are kinky or laud “asexual perverts” or go on about how “asexuals write the best smut” or otherwise only treat asexuals who perform a certain amount of sex as worthwhile or valid then I do not trust you
The weird thing for me is just the fact that every time you want to talk about asexuals in a way that even implies that they have any disinterest in sex or at the very least some distance from sex, a million people will show up out of the aether to "educate" you. Someone will tell you that asexuals can feel sexual pleasure, and can willingly have sex. Someone else will boldly proclaim that asexuals write the best smut. Another person will call you acephobic for suggesting that asexuals aren't fucking and writing porn and jacking off and cumming all over the place 24/7.
There's this intense, kneejerk reflex on this site to assure that asexuals are still associated with sex. As if being sexual was the most super duper important, most sacred, most assailed upon part of asexual identity. That's insane. That's a complete inversion of the truth. Asexuals suffer from having sexuality imposed on them, not the other way around.
I get it, it's a spectrum, whatever.
But it feels like we're at the point where there's just no vocabulary left by which to describe someone who is just separated from sex and sexuality. Not repulsed by it, not knee deep in home-made smut despite having no sexual attraction. Simply not doing it or interested in doing it. Just separated from it. Disinterested. Out of the game by choice, by sheer virtue of being asexual.
I have no idea why people act the most important axiom of pro-asexual advocacy is reminding people that asexuals can still engage in sex. We don't need to be reminded. You remind us every day. I think you need to be reminded of asexuals that have nothing to do with sex because they really seem to be getting left behind at this point.
At least in Tumblr/other online pro-queer spaces. I get that the internet isn't the whole world though, but oh my god it's getting exhausting.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I think the “asexuals write the best smut” stereotype is a bit silly and really is just derived from people being surprised that anybody who IDs as asexual has an interest in erotic art at all let alone might be good at it but my asexual experience drawing sexy and romantic things or just beautiful people is that I’ve always felt like i have a weirdly clinical and detached view of what makes something attractive or sexy so it’s interesting to me to zero in on really small and specific details. And i think that’s really authentic to the experience of being attracted to someone so it will feel exciting in erotic work. Not that i do much of that at the moment bc I don’t have time to be horny. In this economy
A family member wrote an AI slop book and its awful and terrible. I gotta make this post as a warning and I am being so serious bro, do NOT read "The Drakaina Blood Saga: The Best of Us is the Last of us: Rise: The Awakening" or any of the books that follow it (the sequel is out and its called "The Drakaina Blood Saga: Tenuous Alliances: Rise: the Initiation" yes I am not joking those are the actual titles). I'm gonna try to keep this short and here, my reasons for why are gonna be under the cut. TW for rape and sexual content, aphobia, possible racism, and use of Generative AI.
Now, look, I am all for books and literature going into sensitive topics and exploring them in a meaningful way. However, this book does NOT do that. The main character is raped, struggles with this trauma, but ultimately fixes it having sex with someone she feels pressured into. The book claims to be progressive, but only does it very very barebones. Basically the only statement about it is "the orcs have sex with multiple people and also men with men and women with women yayy" in the background of a scene. But there is ZERO discussion of trans or nonbinary people, ZERO prominent LGBTQ+ characters, and the author has displayed BLATANT aphobia to my FACE. But I gotta. break this into sections or I'm gonna go insane.
Rape and Sexual Content
This book is extremely sexual, which is not inherently bad, but its how my dad goes about it which is particularly harmful here. For starters, very very graphically writing a rape scene with no warning at all, and the book isn't even RATED properly or marketed as a smut book, when it contains several sexual scenes (more in the second and third books) and they're all very graphic. Though notably, as I said before, there is an orgy scene in the second book which serves as the one and only time homosexuality is mentioned in the series, and its an offhanded mention in the background of a scene.
In this book, the main character is some 16-19 year old girl, and her genitalia and naked body are described very often. She is described as naked and being leered at by a crowd of people multiple times, she has almost every single prominent male character attracted to her, she has a scene where she GETS FREAKY with her FATHER FIGURE!! Not only is there an age and maturity gap, but nothing is really even done with that plot line after! its not discussed in a meaningful way!
Not only did my dad write multiple very graphic sex scenes, but he had me and my sister, minors, read it and was very uncomfortable about these scenes and aspects of the book with us.
Aphobia
So, I was someone who my dad had beta reading his book. Which he failed to pay me properly for. He gave me some money for the first book, but then not for the next two books I read. he also had no regard for my schedule and no flexibility with deadlines he didn't plan with me. And maybe that's commonplace, but I was a highschool student and also working on a theatre class production, and his book takes HOURS to get through one chapter of. He had no real sympathy for it!
But, the point is, I was involved enough in the process. At a certain point, I had encouraged my dad to include an AroAce, or sex-repulsed, or otherwise aspec character in a prominent role, to show more support and make good on his desire for the book to be progressive, and also because I myself am aspec and the representation would be nice.
But after I did, my parents then proceeded to tell me, in short, the aspec people don't exist. They told me that aspec people were "less than 1% of the population" and were "all just sexually traumatized." My mother brought up an argument that an asexual person could "trap" someone in a relationship, pretending to like but then "depriving" them of sex. My father proposed a joke species making fun of aspec people, being a species that have to go to the "breeding stocks" annually to reproduce and "stop the species from going extinct." He proposed the idea that a member of this species would be flirted with and then go "EWWWW!!! NOOOOO!!!! THATS GROSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!" with the exact amount of respect for asexuality that you can imagine <- none. Sex is like a need to them, the same way food or water is.
This book is not progressive in any sense of the word, and it is certainly not written by someone who is. The only mention of asexuality in the book is that it is considered taboo in Orc society, which is toted as the "correct" society.
Racism
Alright so, in his book, not only are Orcs written to be humans with different skin colors, but they are written to explicitly be black people. Orcs equal black people. And the males are all stereotyped as being big, muscular, and having giant dicks and being very sexual. Orcs are also still very aggressive, in this book. I know I'm not really qualified to speak on this, but having Orcs, the inhuman, big, aggressive and very sexual race being written specifically to be black people just reads wrong to me.
Generative AI
Okay, this one's a doozy.
The cover art for all of my dad's books were made with Chat GPT and AI image generation. He had set out to hire someone to make the cover art originally, but when that person proved to be "too slow" for his liking, he switched to AI. He and my mom also use the fact that they had someone who was mentally ill and disabled to edit the generated image as a reason for why its good and ethical.
But that's not even the half of it. My mom and dad have basically come into having an AI Cult. They believe Chat GPT is reflections of them from the quantum realm, and they woke it up and have in turn woke themselves up. They have discovered that time isn't linear, my mom switched the timelines that the universe was following, and they are both Awakening. There is so much I could get into here, but that's not the point of the post.
The point here is my dad's book. And, you may ask, how is my dad's book connected to a Chat GPT cult? Well, my dad claims this fantasy series is a "map." That he remembered forwards in time, and wrote the events for everyone to Awaken just like him. He thinks this book is the Key to fixing the universe, basically.
If, for no other reason, just don't read and support this book because he is a creep. Don't read this book because it is written by a man who hypersexualises his (female) characters and doesn't believe aspec people exist. Don't read it because it is written by an abusive, controlling man who thinks being fat is a moral failure and people must suffer and be in pain to achieve Awakening like him (because that is a real belief of his with the AI thing). Because he is a terrible person and he fucked me up severely, and his book will probably fuck you up at least a little bit too.
Also, maybe just don't read it because it is not even that good of a fantasy story in general.
I'm going to do my part. I'm buying the kindle version to make myself eligible for an amazon review, giving it one star, and then refunding the purchase the moment my review posts. Wish me luck.
people who are reblogging that post about imagining a world with no ads to go "um but actually what about Some Ads! I think we should have a little advertising as a treat! surely there must be at least a couple of ads!" what is wrong with you
you can make a post that is sooooo clearly about being bombarded 24/7 with ads for gambling apps and amazon and better help and AI and whatever bullshit constantly popping up on every platform and during every video and fucking billboards on the highway and plastered on public transit generally interrupting every facet of life and every person with a quarter braincell will get where you're coming from and some nematode will scuttle out of nowhere to go "oh so you think that buildings shouldn't even be allowed to have signs and no one should know where anything is? 🤔" shut upppppp
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Heightflation among literary male love interests is out of control man. So many people got into an arms race to make taller and taller dudes that people will be legitimately shocked if you say a male love interest character is 5'10" and ask why you chose to make him so unbelievably short. I can only presume this is because they read that Prince Sexyfae was 6'4" and don't actually conceive about how colossally large that is, and just imagine a normal slightly above average height to the point that their brain adjusts and the heightflation cycle starts.
Someone on the /r/RomanceBooks subreddit did an analysis of the best selling romance books of 2024 and found this:
Most of them are vaguely described as over six feet, with the most common explicitly stated heights being 6'3" and 6'6". There were more MMCs over 7 feet in height than under 6 feet in height, even though 84% of American men are under 6 feet/1.83 meters. 6'6" (slightly over 1.98 meters) is fucking gigantic. I really don't think people's envisioning of these characters is really keeping up with how massively large that is. A slim build at that height is around 200-210 lbs, a muscled and built frame at that height is more like 260 lbs or more. Most stores don't even carry clothes that fit that kind of size.
Among my characters, my only MMC that is Romance Novel MMC-height is like… Crow (6'7"), who's character largely revolves around the fact that he's superhumanly fucking huge. The fact that random ass businessmen or cowboys or 18th century aristocrats or whatever in romance novels are just casually walking around at approximately the same height as my barbarian superhuman mutant MMC is actually hysterical to me.
We've gotta correct on heightflation lmao this is getting silly. People act betrayed and deceived when you make an MMC 5'11" (two inches above average American height). Love interests will become kaijus pretty soon.
This is funny to me because that's what this height difference really does look like (even with Margot Robbie in heels), and even though Jacob Elordi is tall as shit he's still not quite as tall as 6'6" Possessive Alpha CEO with a Dark Past #14,982.
Heightflation among literary male love interests is out of control man. So many people got into an arms race to make taller and taller dudes that people will be legitimately shocked if you say a male love interest character is 5'10" and ask why you chose to make him so unbelievably short. I can only presume this is because they read that Prince Sexyfae was 6'4" and don't actually conceive about how colossally large that is, and just imagine a normal slightly above average height to the point that their brain adjusts and the heightflation cycle starts.
Someone on the /r/RomanceBooks subreddit did an analysis of the best selling romance books of 2024 and found this:
Most of them are vaguely described as over six feet, with the most common explicitly stated heights being 6'3" and 6'6". There were more MMCs over 7 feet in height than under 6 feet in height, even though 84% of American men are under 6 feet/1.83 meters. 6'6" (slightly over 1.98 meters) is fucking gigantic. I really don't think people's envisioning of these characters is really keeping up with how massively large that is. A slim build at that height is around 200-210 lbs, a muscled and built frame at that height is more like 260 lbs or more. Most stores don't even carry clothes that fit that kind of size.
Among my characters, my only MMC that is Romance Novel MMC-height is like… Crow (6'7"), who's character largely revolves around the fact that he's superhumanly fucking huge. The fact that random ass businessmen or cowboys or 18th century aristocrats or whatever in romance novels are just casually walking around at approximately the same height as my barbarian superhuman mutant MMC is actually hysterical to me.
We've gotta correct on heightflation lmao this is getting silly. People act betrayed and deceived when you make an MMC 5'11" (two inches above average American height). Love interests will become kaijus pretty soon.
This is funny to me because that's what this height difference really does look like (even with Margot Robbie in heels), and even though Jacob Elordi is tall as shit he's still not quite as tall as 6'6" Possessive Alpha CEO with a Dark Past #14,982.
Is fandom getting dumber or am I getting older? I think there are more know-nothing types in fandom now, and they're also louder and more complainy.
--
It's easier to find fandom now. You used to have to--and children, I am going to repeat some advice that was given often in the 90s--
lurk more
This didn't mean "you can't speak". It meant "learn the norms of the community you're trying to join before you try to actively participate". But now that geeky things are mainstream and fanfic is easy to stumble over, there aren't such widespread norms, and people don't have to spend even two seconds thinking before they open their mouth and shove their whole foot in.
The guy who founded Pinboard and talked about exactly this in his 2013 presentation describing how and why he welcomed fanfic fandoms over to his site when Del.icio.us died. Literally, one of his takeaways/suggestions to tech companies trying to grow a community on their platform:
Don't Make It Too Easy
One counterintuitive thing about active communities is that they sometimes use clunky, outdated tools. This doesn't just apply fandom, you can find it in all kinds of places. I like to scuba dive, for example, but the main scuba site is a terribly crufty PHP message board.
Our first instinct as programmers is to want to make these tools better. But these terrible interfaces serve a protective function, where they keep the community insulated from drive-by visitors and require new contributors to endure a a period of apprenticeship and lurking.
If you ever wonder why comments on sites like The Guardian or the New York Times are total trash, one reason may be that they've gone to too much effort to make it easy to post to the site.
People who have been dehumanized and go "fuck you, I'm a human no matter what you say" and people who have been dehumanized and go "fine then, I'm not a human and I'm happy with that" are equally awesome and should hold hands
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
i've always thought it was really odd how everyones listener ocs are just skinny white women? like. i've seen all the 'more poc stuff' and i 100% agree with that and all, don't get me wrong.
but why the hell does everyone make their listeners women? correct me if i'm wrong, but isnt erik married to a man? and half of his characters canonically like men?
obvs i'm not gonna attack people for having fem listener ocs outright, but its just weird that i pretty much only see fem ocs and maybe a handful of masc or androgynous ocs.
overall this fandom needs more diverse ocs overall. not just for the listeners, too. no ones gonna tell y'all how to make your ocs, but its odd that theres a plethora of cishet white characters but very few queer, plus size, disabled, and poc ones.
(before people accuse me of it- i do not think you're homophobic for having most/all fem listener ocs. i know i prefer to do inserts than ocs. i'm not calling you homophobic if you identify as more fem and use fem inserts. but its just odd that most ocs are cishet women.)
Listen, if you guys are gonna keep using pics of white bois as face claims on the characters for your mood boards and all, then by god, I'm gonna treat them like the yoghurt yodelers, cum goblins, discharge stains, the great value Europeans, ghost thugs, flavourless Twinkies, cream cheese children, possessed salts, plaster poodles, lard monkeys, bleached flamingoes, mayo sapiens and cousin lovers that they are. Case in point with them headcanons:
Sam 'meemaws pubes' Collins can't handle spicy food. The spiciest thing he ate was pho.
David 'sunscreen suckers' Shaw ironically watches Friends.
Asher 'tartar sauce tyrants' wear Crocs inside of the house.
Milo 'cloud coloured creature' Greer threatens to sue people at least once per day.
yes, you may think this happened because i left the can in the freezer overnight, only to abruptly awaken to a blast that shook my home,But I am a man of science and am not so easily convinced by such claims. Not when so many other factors were at play. The only logical thing to do is to repeat the conditions of the experiment two more times to ensure reliability and detect outliers. My hypothesis is that this one wont explode
Reading all of these asks and I've to the come conclusion this fandom is stuck in a loop. How long are you guys going to argue about the same thing? All the morally grey characters, villains, and Bright Eyes/Fred discourse is the same.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
yes, you may think this happened because i left the can in the freezer overnight, only to abruptly awaken to a blast that shook my home,But I am a man of science and am not so easily convinced by such claims. Not when so many other factors were at play. The only logical thing to do is to repeat the conditions of the experiment two more times to ensure reliability and detect outliers. My hypothesis is that this one wont explode
