aroaceking

[aroaceking]

Racism in the ace community is seen as a joke from the outside and a confusing concept in the inside but it's pretty bait tbh:

Barbie, Wednesday and Elsa are ace-coded but not canon aces but they're widely accepted as ace icons in the community. Lacking genitalia, disliking romance and being single are not inherently asexual yet the community happily claims them as ace solely on those reasons. But Selah Summers? Nah she actually didn't say the words "aroace" even though the director confirmed it so she didn't really count. Abbi Singh? Nah she had a girlfriend and her superpower is being a succubus and it's not like the Imperfects actually addressed the themes of an asexual lesbian South Asian woman and her sexuality or anything. Fei Hargreeves? Well yeah the actress and producer confirmed it but she never said it on screen. Ace characters of colour always get held "screened" for approval to be "real rep" in a way white aces aren't its so weird (this also happens to gay aces but that's another post)

Almost anything involving Yasmin Benoit. The reason she's unacceptable ace rep is because of misogynoir. She's spoken so many times about never dating and not having sex (which mind you is none of our business and she shouldn't need to explain herself in the 1st place) and yet she's "too sexual" to represent the community. Again with the nitpicking, popular white ace accounts were so quick to dogpile her for not-so-good takes but when she speaks about racism? Crickets. When she spoke about sexual harassment? Crickets and not only that but they defended her harasser. The main ace activists that defended her were other Black aspecs.

Not understanding how desexualisation affects POC. Specifically, Black women are excluded from representations of love and sex because we're seen as undesirable. It's common for TV/Film to pair up everyone but the Black girl, or have a rebound Black partner for the non-Black main character who's disposed of when they're ready for their "real" non-Black partner again. This isn't done for Black aspecs benefit. It's a form of dehumanisation. Friendship especially in m/f is needed but exclusively pushing for friendship between Black women and non-Black men when there is romance coded or confirmed and shaming Black women in fandom or in show for shipping the Black female character is not doing what you think its doing.

Not understanding how sexualisation effects POC. Again linking to Yasmin, POC, especially Black people have been sexualised due to white supremacy. The "allosexual privilege" framework fails to acknowledge this because Black people's sexual attraction and sex is seen as aggressive and animalistic. Black people aren't "allowed" to be ace because of this sexualisation and why Yasmin regardless of what she wears or does is seen is too promiscuous.

Not acknowledging ace POC as ace rep. Again, where was the acknowledgement of Selah and the Spades as groundbreaking rep? The first aroace darkskin Black girl as a lead in any film? Sherronda J Brown spoke about Big Mouth's Black ace character and someone said it didn't count just bc they dislike the show. Again with Abbi and Fei the community didn't make noise for them like they did Todd from Bojack Horseman or Florence from Sex Ed (mind you the gap between how they did Florence vs O is jarring in itself) Isaac from Heartstopper was inspirational for many aspecs and I wont take that away but the way he's instantly credited for ace representation when he has so little screentime compared to the others is wild.

Just tired tbh. "Listen to POC aces!" "POC aces are valid!" Prove it then...?

[aroaceking]

In the same way allosexual =/= always having sex, alloromantic =/= always dating. There is no overall alloace experience because who and how aces have romantic attraction varies. Lumping gay, bi, pan & lesbian aces with straight aces in terms of privilege when homophobia is still alive and well, when compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity... are directly tied to compulsory heterosexuality doesn't make any sense.

[aroaceking]

it’s crazy because i think a lot of times in fandom people declare that [x important female character] is a lesbian and make up a wlw relationship to throw her into with a background character or someone who she has no chemistry with and they’ll reblog two cute pieces of ship art and say “let’s go lesbians!!!!!” in the tags and then completely forget about her . she’s a lesbian just so she won’t interfere with anything . and now they have an excuse to ignore her for male characters or their favorite male x male ships under the guise of being progressive and giving “representation” to dykes. or something like that.

[aroaceking]

Thank you, anon, I am open to further discussion.

[aroaceking]

@fite-club

Thank you for your compassion with my experience, and for clarifying on your own.

For me, having the ace label helped me to actually make less assumptions about my peers, but I understand there are examples of the opposite. My reaction was rooted in upset at the family member defining it immediately the way they did, with context relating to a past event I witnessed, so what I was venting about on my blog was moreso related to those feelings and the alarm I experienced from it, but I understand what you were responding to within that.

I hope it's apparent also that I don't want people of any age, especially teenagers, to feel locked down into an identity or label just because they were seeking community. I think being a teenager is a really confusing time, and that children often look for ways to navigate these feelings, and I understand why family may be alarmed at any of the ways they see a teenager distancing themselves from peers, but my larger concern would be why the individual child feels that way and if that's something they need space to ask questions about or discuss. [I just wanted to elaborate on that because I'm not sure if I properly addressed my position on that specifically].

replies below to acknowledge I read all of it

thanks for writing this all out. i have a completely different reaction knowing that you don't ascribe to the split attraction model, because in that sense i also believe that asexuality is not inherently sexual and we agree on that. sorry for popping off in the first place but i still think it's normal for family to be concerned when a child distances themselves from their peers in this way like i still stand by the "you're still developing" thing, the age of consent is 18 for a reason. it's normal for teens to experience sexual attraction and it's normal for teens to not. the "all the other kids are interested in sex and i'm not" is a valid feeling, but it's not accurate your experience with sexualization completely contextualizes why you feel the way you do, there are expectations and assumptions put onto you. i just want ace-identifying teens to not put expectations and assumptions onto their classmates, and not stubbornly lock themselves into an identity they form around a community. obviously those things aren't always happening, but i'm defending the original idea that teens don't need to be deciding "i don't want sex" at that age

[aroaceking]

I understand that I am clearly triggered. I understand I was triggered to begin with. I understand I have trauma. Honestly, I am constantly triggered because my existence is just the intersection of a lot of traumatizing experiences.

[aroaceking]

I literally cannot tell if you actually want me to answer any of the things you asked but I'm posting the entire comment and I will answer it. I'm going to be very honest and address that I am autistic so if I've taken the fact there were questions too literally I am actually sorry, I have no intention of requesting engagement from you if you are not actually trying to discuss it with me.

Reblogs are off because I don't really feel comfortable with reblogs when I'm going to address some of my trauma, but you're free to reply to this or send an ask (I think ask word limits are lower now?) if you wish to reply.

tw because I don't know how to explain any of my things without addressing a lot of this: transphobia tw, transmisogyny tw, intersexism tw, homophobia tw, racism tw, csa tw, cocsa tw, childhood sexual trauma tw, medical abuse tw, ableism tw, idk like literally it's just my life idk how to give it enough labels to give fair warning.

under a read more because it's long

@fite-club

okay. there’s a lot to unpack here. i’m gonna first address the “stop sexualizing asexuality” thing— asexuality is about sexual attraction, it is inherently a sexual topic in nature. but you’re alarmingly wrong about something here, and it’s the “recognizing ways I was different from my peers” part as a 14 year old, you WEREN’T different from your peers for not experiencing sexual attraction. MOST 14 year olds don’t. you mention trauma in your past— this is extremely relevant. why do you believe that the majority of 14 year olds were sexual, who told you that? ike, yeah, hypothetically someone who identifies as ace at 14 and experiences sexual attraction at age 18 can change their label from asexual to allosexual. but will they ACTUALLY do that, though? or will they just call themselves a sex-favorable asexual? when you make lacking attraction a part of your identity, what happens to your sense of identity if you DO experience attraction? also i need to point out that there are literal biological functions that are not done developing until you are over 18. your body and brain and hormones are still growing. you definitely cannot say with any certainty that anyone below the age of 16 knows they experience sexual attraction or not finally i need you to understand that by emphasizing “hey, it’s actually completely fine and normal to not be interested in sex at all when you’re in high school” it actually helps prevent teens from being sexually abused. “most teens are allosexual” is NOT the message you want to be spreading.

"asexuality is about sexual attraction, it is inherently a sexual topic in nature."

this is part of what I feel most uncomfortable with. it is innately a conversation about sexuality, but that, too, to me, feels simplified to state as 'sexual' when people are constantly equating sexual with 'having sex' or 'having sexual desires'. developmentally it's a lot more complex than that, especially when you don't use a split attraction model or thoroughly separate/classify all aspects of orientation. I understand why people may break down their identities into the tiniest boxes they can imagine, but I actually don't navigate it that way at all.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea that discussing sexuality is sexual. I know I'm repeating myself, I just am not sure if I'm clear. It's also deeply unsettling to me to see people, of any orientation, act like it's sexual for a child to state if they like boys or girls or whatever else. Or how people act like it's sexual for a child to have a gender identity separate from their assignment.

I will acknowledge the assignment I was given had impact on my feelings on this matter, I was hypersexualized throughout my childhood for being intersex, for publicly going also from 'boy' to 'girl', for my race. I understand that these add to my experiences and are part of why I was reacted to the way I was. That it was a catch-22 because if I had liked boys, I would've been performing gender wrong and if I had liked girls, I would've been performing gender wrong, and that no matter what space I took up, it would be 'incorrect.'

But this experience is mine. I was doomed to be sexualized no matter what I did in the environment I was a part of, and part of that relates to this idea that gender and sexuality in children when 'off the norm' is innately sexual. That if a child expresses a relationship to gender or orientation outside of boxes defined for them that it's somehow sexual.

I tried to define it to an anon earlier also but developmentally I am including things like how children will play-roles as well. A lot of my friends learned gender and orientation through how they wanted to do pretend games or how they felt unfulfilled by them. This isn't sexual, this isn't weird, it's a normal part of development. This includes children picking and pointing out fictional characters or celebrities to admire or joke about wanting to marry/have as a boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever. This includes the way children will also explore themselves through putting claims out like 'so and so is my boyfriend now' or whatever.

"you mention trauma in your past— this is extremely relevant. why do you believe that the majority of 14 year olds were sexual, who told you that?"

I know the trauma in my past is 'relevant.' I'm sure if I had not been further sexualized by adults and children alike for being intersex and the WAY I was intersex that I would not have the same relationship to any of this. As I stated, it's why I feel so strongly about some of it. I don't know who I would be without trauma, I can't just take my trauma aside and yes, I've gone through therapy, multiple attempts, some forced and some me trying to approach it carefully. It's why I tried to study developmental psychology.

I really dislike the statement 'why do you believe that the majority of 14 year olds were sexual'. I believe a majority of 14 year olds weren't and aren't asexual because a majority of the population is not asexual. It's a minority group. So is being gay. So is being trans. So is being intersex. If they feel strongly enough to identify as asexual, it is probably because they have an experience where it has made them feel othered, or at the very least uncomfortable. I don't even see why it matters if they're wrong about it. Nowadays they're constantly seeing people misidentify it as rooted in action, as in if you have sex or not, and some of them are probably very scared of the expectation of sex, and so they may label themselves incorrectly because they want to feel like they have support in language to communicate a perfectly normal boundary to have and when they get older, hopefully they recognize that.

That's part of why I dislike the fixation on if it's about sex or not! Or even the fixation people have on labels staying stagnant! Lots of people identify as straight or cis or whatever before realizing they're not, and it's okay also for them to have gotten it wrong the first or second or fiftieth time around idk. I have friends that still don't exactly know where they sit on both gender and orientation. I think that's normal! We have our whole lives to navigate!

But also 'who told you that'. Almost everyone around me except maybe some of the xtians (I'm not xtian) and mainly the xtians were more focused on telling me that 14 year old girls weren't interested in those kinds of things, which is why they must be 'protected' from 14 year old boys who are entirely too interested in it and my biology would make me unsafe even after I had, against my will, been medically altered due to complications with my hormones and body.

I don't know. I don't know how to explain what I grew up in. I don't know if it's different cultural expectations, I don't know if it's the ways I was seen as a threat by white people, I don't know. It's not 'who' told me that because 'who' was nearly everyone. But even if they weren't telling me that, even if they were telling me I was 'smart' for not dating or that I probably shouldn't date anyway or that no matter who I dated it would be weird, they also thought it was weird I had no actual interest at all. That I didn't admire celebrities or had crushes or expressed any future interest in it. People thought it was weird as hell I thought the entire construct of it was kind of fake, and yes, I was also autistic and so there was a level of them just thinking I was stupid and developmentally challenged because I was autistic, but that's also part of why they tried to 'fix' it, because my presentation was one where I could 'try' to fit.

But also I know lots of people who were raised xtian and expected to be girls who also got really messed up by the confusing explanations and expectations around it. That hurt themselves because they thought there was something gross or wrong with them as they hit perfectly normal developmental milestones. I was also the outlet for a lot of weird guilt and self-loathing from both boys and girls who viewed me as innately sexual for my relationship to gender. That viewed my medical changes as something somehow for them.

I know it's perfectly normal to not date at 14, I don't know how to be more clear about that, I don't know how to say 'yes I am aware plenty of 14 year olds are figuring themselves out, plenty of them don't know or fake crushes or even will explain they don't know if they've had them yet, I know plenty of them are definitely not interested in sex or dating' and also state 'this is why I'm saying it's not about sex! the ways I was othered and hypersexualized and desexualized are about all the tiny other ways I did not fit into the boxes I was supposed to!'

I was trying to express how having 'asexual' as a term helped me cope. Helped me be more compassionate to my peers. Continues to help me now. That's what labels are even for. That's their use. I was upset seeing someone say "#you’re 15!#you don’t want to have sex! that’s fine!#it’s not an identity!" about a niece identifying as asexual on a post discussing how the op's relationship to crushes/attraction has changed from having a lot of them as a teen to mellowing out a lot as an adult (which is normal, which is why I'm so! fucking confused! on the fucking pushback!!!! on me stating that it was othering! to be a child outside of that and attacked by adults and other children over it!!! and now I'm being told 'nothing about ur experience was abnormal' then why!!! was I constantly!!! told!!! it was!!!).

I mean I can tell you part of why. I am not fucking stupid. I am aware I was 'abnormal' also for my body and my brain and my race. Normalcy is socially constructed and upheld. Something can be atypical but not treated as abnormal, and something can be common but socially classified as abnormal for structural purposes. Like we say 'minority' for nonwhite people as if white people aren't actually STATISTICALLY globally the minority. (Yes, I know, that depending on your country, they are statistically a majority, but they only became the 'majority' in the country I'm in through horrific violence and even in countries where they are statistically the majority it's violently upheld as they push back against nonwhite people moving in blah blah blah, ie still socially upheld through structures).

Like I feel like somehow I'm having entirely different conversations about this.

"like, yeah, hypothetically someone who identifies as ace at 14 and experiences sexual attraction at age 18 can change their label from asexual to allosexual. but will they ACTUALLY do that, though? or will they just call themselves a sex-favorable asexual? when you make lacking attraction a part of your identity, what happens to your sense of identity if you DO experience attraction?"

Okay but I don't CARE? The stigma around changing your orientation label needs to go but also I don't care if they're wrong. It's irritating, yes, and often derails these spaces and discussions, but also like it's their life, I can't make them change their identity. I can just share information on how other people have expressed attraction and learning to navigate it and offer solutions and pose questions on how their relationship may have changed and give examples of people coming into it deeper in adulthood.

There are people that think they aren't ace because they don't care if they have sex, even though they aren't attracted to anyone, and eventually reach a point in their life, sometimes late in it, where they learn about it and go 'oh' and suddenly have a word for this thing that helps them better define their experiences. And I don't mean 18, 18 is so young.

What happens to people who identify legitimately as a gender or orientation they later realize doesn't fit them? I can't control them. I had a friend who thought she was straight and it took a lot of self-reflection for her to realize she was bisexual. She had to be out of an environment where her attraction to women was dismissed, desexualized, and recognized as equal and not diminished by her attraction to men.

I've had friends who had been neutral on men in their lives, who realized they were lesbians only in their 20s because they had been neutral about men they tried to date due to expectations. I know women who transitioned and tried to like men out of gender obligation, who had to work through those feelings and the root of them to actually understand their relationship to orientation.

If we allow space and discussion for the myriad of ways it presents or develops or can be defined, then this becomes less of a fixation point. The fragility of people's identities rooted in NEEDING to strictly define them is not helpful for many, especially younger people. I'm still younger people. I know people who've changed their identities in their 50s. I know there are people I don't personally know who have changed and played with their identities even later in life.

I use language the way I use language because I'm autistic and descriptionist. I can't stop people from being prescriptionist with theirs.

I understand the harm people experience when they cling to identities that no longer suit them. But I can't constantly stop people from harming themselves, I can't control them! I ALSO can feel uncomfortable or out of place when people try to relate to me and utilize the same terms I do but in completely different ways. I don't know how to interact when someone my age comes to me identifying as ace but then also being alarmed when I do not relate to the ways they categorize attraction or lack thereof. It can be very strange to do so. A lack of something is even harder to define than the existence of something.

"also i need to point out that there are literal biological functions that are not done developing until you are over 18. your body and brain and hormones are still growing. you definitely cannot say with any certainty that anyone below the age of 16 knows they experience sexual attraction or not"

Okay, and again, they can just change how they define it. People biologically change their whole lives. Menopause biologically changes people but it doesn't mean that for the period of their life before they may utilize labels to describe their experience before that point, or that those identities may still be important to them after that point.

I didn't say they always know or correctly define if they experience attraction or not? I don't think people can really say with any certainty until they have reason to feel certain. I think people can be 16 and not know and 25 and not know and 52 and not know.

As stated before, I'm intersex. I was also medically altered in a way that potentially is part of why I do not experience attraction idk. I know people who were medically altered similarly who do experience attraction. Idk. I would say 'I don't care' if it would have been different otherwise, but I do care actually, I care a lot, but my reality is what it is now and it has been incredibly harmful to me to try and 'treat' it. If something changes, I will change my identity, and not feel ashamed that I utilized language the way I needed to while it was relevant to me.

I'm autistic and intersex. I don't. I don't know how to phrase this but like. I have never been developmentally categorized as in the position of 'normal.' Because normal is socially defined and enforced. There are stages and ranges that are categorized as 'normal.' People who do not fit those stages or ranges are treated differently. Sometimes they utilize language for it. I don't. Like that's all it is to me.

"finally i need you to understand that by emphasizing “hey, it’s actually completely fine and normal to not be interested in sex at all when you’re in high school” it actually helps prevent teens from being sexually abused. “most teens are allosexual” is NOT the message you want to be spreading."

It is in fact true that emphasizing to children that it is their right and completely fine and acceptable and a boundary they can uphold to not be interested in sex in high school, this is good and useful and helpful. Giving them language for that is important, regardless of why they need it.

It is also important to help prevent abuse by giving them better language and resources on how they may be developing sexually and that they do not need to be ashamed of interest or engage in unsafe sexual practices as a way to explore that. I had friends literally manipulated by the idea that there was something shameful in their development that was only suitable for adults to 'manage' for them and it was part of their exploitation. This is in fact an aspect of abstinence-only education being a failure.

Children also need to be taught even if they ARE developing sexual interest, they can also develop boundaries around it anyway! Shame, confusion, hiding, whatever about this literally directly leads a lot of teenagers into the arms of predators. It alarms and concerns me this topic can somehow shift into statements that may further confuse these lines, so I want to be very clear.

And I want to also state I don't. Ugh. I don't think children by and large actually are easily defined as 'majority straight' or 'majority allosexual' or anything like that. I think that obviously the majority of people meet that, hence my earlier statement of noticing a kind of othering, but I don't actually think that means it's fair to label hordes of children as either straight or allosexual or even cis because it is in fact typical that they wouldn't even know or have a definitive enough relationship to it.

Feeling drawn to describing an experience you have with language that is about how you've felt othered doesn't even mean no one else involved could later define themselves with those terms. Some of the people who were cruel to me found out later they were boys or found out later they were girls or found out later they were gay or found out later they were intersex in a different way from me even.

I AGREE that children should be taught they are allowed to have boundaries??? I agree that children should be taught it's acceptable and valid and completely within their right to not have crushes or interest in dating or interest in sex or be more focused on their other experiences (like poverty, like disability, like race, like trauma, like education, like gender, like media interests, like whatever else??) over defining themselves and their gender and their orientation?

I think we should in fact encourage that it is okay to not know or not need to know yet. I think we should encourage people to realize they don't have to rush experiences they aren't ready for. I have friends whose first relationship was 25 and they never identified as ace or aro, they just were never in a position to get into that part of themselves for a variety of reasons. I don't. I do not understand the reaction to what I've said.

I was upset because an individual child individually defined themselves and some adult in their life was alarmed by a fairly simple identity that was not in any way some permanent or damning aspect. I'm upset because in 2020 I saw some adult literally tell a middle-grade child who identified as asexual on the internet they were 'attracting pedophiles' by identifying publicly as ace. An adult thought it was appropriate to define it that way and say that kind of thing to a child because of the child's identity. A whole lot of other adults agreed with it and kept going on about the inherently sexual nature of the term meant to describe an orientation.

It's just weird. When I told my mom in high school, she became fixated on the ways she might have broken me or made me that way. She became focused on listing all the possible other explanations and getting me to counseling and then devolved into belittling me for it, when all it was was an explanation for how I felt I was experiencing the world. It helped my friends be kinder to me. It helped me be kinder to my friends. It still helps me navigate the ways I may be unable to relate to others.

[aroaceking]

And lots of teens don't have crushes, don't have sexual desires and aren't otherized for it at all. And aren't ace or aro for that.

I feel like we are somehow having two entirely different conversations on this. I don't disagree that there are plenty of teenagers who don't have crushes or 'sexual desires' and that are not aro or ace.

I don't even know how to make a list of all the numerous tiny and large ways I personally was treated as strange. 'Sexual desires' it's not. Ugh. Developmentally appropriate ways people may get into it are things like admiring cartoon characters or celebrities, wanting to act out dating or marriage through both pretend play and as they get a little older childhood dating (like when kids say 'blahblah is my boyfriend' regardless of even a change in behavior).

Sometimes this includes recognizing feelings of discomfort or shifting attitudes towards how they would play or imagine themselves in these dynamics for their future. Many gay and trans children may shut down on this because the roles more directly press on some of these struggles or they get attacked for the roles they attempt to play through--I know some girls where when younger it was okay for them to play the husband in pretend play but as they got older, not only were people less willing to play house, but also became critical of their desire to play a certain role within it.

This is so. I don't even know how to get into this topic. I minored in developmental psychology to try and understand myself. I tried to understand why the things that happened to me did. It feels absolutely irresponsible to both other people in situations like I had been in and just dishonest to interpret any attempt in the conversation to acknowledge why some might go towards the label at a completely developmentally appropriate time to question it.

Would you say 14 is a developmentally inappropriate age to recognize you're gay? Also I understand some gay children will shrink into the identity because they're scared of unpacking that, and sometimes they cling to it even after it would be healthier for them to move on. But they could just as easily do that with identifying as straight, especially women, who are constantly taught that it's normal to not have desires because it would be wrong for them to experience attraction (like how many lesbians who realize later in life because they just thought it was normal to not like the boyfriends or even husbands they tried to have, at least to not like them the way they actually would like a woman they were attracted to).

I just feel like so much of this conversation is weirdly centered on disproving the experiences ace and aro people try to discuss, so much so that it can also devolve into defensive aro and ace people lashing out instead of building our resources. I withdrew years ago from these conversations online because I was frustrated by the way it was escalating. Seems we never fucking moved on past 2015 discourse, just more into it.

I remember the fucking abhorrent conversations about AIDs, I remember the derailed conversations about 'queerness', I remember both the refusal to acknowledge that, yes in fact, there were aces that are both cis and het, and also the refusal to acknowledge GLAAD accepting aces as LGBT+ anyway. Because it's not a fucking innate thing, like everything it's all socially constructed and maintained and it was already a coalition, not a singular thing, and yes I am also still bothered by the refusal to properly discuss things like misogyny or trauma that props up in the community I am a part of but I am also involved in other communities that have their own struggles to identify and discuss certain issues and it's also frustrating and it's also something that does NOT get better when you make a group more defensive and upset.

quotes under read more because I'm literally confused:

"Realizing I had an experience that could be defined and also was outside of many of my friend's helped alleviate some of the panic surrounding what attraction even meant."

"it's weirder and creepier to me that you 1) equate it with sexual activity"

"It's very alienating to be a teenager and not have any crushes or understand what people are even talking about when they discuss crushes or what makes someone 'hot' or whatever fucking else and sex doesn't! Have to be a part of that even!!"

"I have friends that have admitted my confusion and lack of attraction messed up their processing of their own sexuality because of how intensely I expressed bewilderment over it."

"I know there are plenty of people who developed later. I am 28 years old now. I have seen people who developed later. Or whose development was delayed because they were dysphoric, traumatized, or struggling with internalized homophobia/just straight misogyny."

"Realizing my differences helped me with understanding and being more compassionate with my peers. It also gave the ones who cared a basis of understanding said differences in a way that helped them, too."

"And yes, plenty of people develop later/DONT have crushes and aren't ace. There's a million reasons for it."

[aroaceking]

it is very common for 14 year olds to not experience attraction, at all. you wer enot different from your peers, at all.

You don't know a fucking thing about my fucking life, or my peers. I have friends that have admitted my confusion and lack of attraction messed up their processing of their own sexuality because of how intensely I expressed bewilderment over it.

I repeatedly experienced fucking cocsa because people MY AGE tried to "fix" me. I was humiliated by teachers, my parents, and other children.

I know there are plenty of people who developed later. I am 28 years old now. I have seen people who developed later. Or whose development was delayed because they were dysphoric, traumatized, or struggling with internalized homophobia/just straight misogyny. But yes, my peers DID consider me fucking abnormal, they regularly made sure I knew, and even the friends whose development I harmed knew I was "weird" but were scared by how genuinely I believed it was not a real thing.

I was singled out for not having crushes. "Common" or not, I started being cornered in bathrooms and closets over it by the time I was fucking eleven by peers SPECIFICALLY telling me it was because there was something wrong with me. I'm so fucking sick of people making this shit worse and more confusing for everyone because you don't know what norms derive from.

Realizing my differences helped me with understanding and being more compassionate with my peers. It also gave the ones who cared a basis of understanding said differences in a way that helped them, too.

It is so fucking weird to act like it's not the fucking norm for teens to have crushes. And yes, plenty of people develop later/DONT have crushes and aren't ace. There's a million reasons for it. It was still very alienating for me in my environment growing up.

[aroaceking]

Happy International Asexuality Day!!! 💜🤍🖤

[aroaceking]

i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

[aroaceking]

here's the thing. "ace people can still have sex" and "aro people can still be in relationships" are objectively true statements. this is because people can do whatever the fuck they want forever regardless of their label/orientation. however some of you have GOT to get your shit together and stop using those statements to undermine larger conversations about aspec identity. following up "ace people don't owe you sex in a relationship" with "ace people can still have sex in a relationship though!" is not fucking helpful! yes it's true. yes it's a reality for many people. however if we used our fucking brains for a second and thought about how following up "people don't have to conform to societal expectation" with "but people can still conform!! don't worry they can still conform!!!!" is counterproductive and very frustrating for a lot of people then we could get back to the actual point which is not "aspec people can still have sex/be in relationships" but "aspec people can do whatever they want with their relationships and their bodies". which they can, by the way. they can do whatever they want forever. and you should give them 200 dollars every time you see them for dealing with this shit

[aroaceking]

Happy Ace Week!!! 🖤🤍💜

[aroaceking]

"#god I think about this all the time#my 15 year old niece identifies as ace#and I’m like (privately)#you’re 15!#you don’t want to have sex! that’s fine!#it’s not an identity!"

screaming forever endlessly agonizingly this upsets me viscerally

I found the label 'asexual' also sometime around 14. This helped me immensely with recognizing ways I was different from my peers and even potentially harming them. Realizing I had an experience that could be defined and also was outside of many of my friend's helped alleviate some of the panic surrounding what attraction even meant.

I literally did not think attraction was a real thing, except maybe some strange future things adults had that I never wanted to experience, before I ever had a name for it.

Some of it was trauma, some of it wasn't. I still do not experience sexual or romantic attraction.

Also!! It's not!!!! About action! It's not about if you want to have sex or not!!! For some people that's how they learn it but it's not! Fucking! About that! It's about attraction!!!!!! It's about if you're fucking attracted to people!!!

I'm so fucking tired of this shit I'm so fucking exhausted with it. You think it's weird or creepy for a child to identify as asexual but it's weirder and creepier to me that you 1) equate it with sexual activity and 2) equate a child's desire to identify with it to sexual activity!!!

And even if that was how a child was using it, okay, they can always identify away from it when they understand themselves better or feel more comfortable!!! It's okay for labels to chance, it's okay for our identities and understanding of self to shift. It's okay for them to not!

Stop! Sexualizing! Asexuality!!!! It is an orientation! It's very alienating to be a teenager and not have any crushes or understand what people are even talking about when they discuss crushes or what makes someone 'hot' or whatever fucking else and sex doesn't! Have to be a part of that even!!

[aroaceking]

Another thought about my view on fictional romance as an aro, usually I don't care much for the romance itself and I'm a lot more interested in how it affects the story and the impact it has on the characters. It's more of a plot device than anything

Do a character's feelings for their love interest affect the way they act and the choices they make? How does the relationship affect their character development or the outcome of the story? Is the love interest a good influence or a bad one? This sounds a lot more intriguing than just the kissing

[aroaceking]

𝓂𝓎 𝓃𝑒𝒾𝑔𝒽𝒷𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝑜𝓉𝑜𝓇𝑜 ≽ܫ≼

[aroaceking]

late night aro blues - you are the priority in my life, and I'm not the priority in yours.

I'm not mad at them of course... just needed to express this feeling somehow, it's been tearing me up