jaspicosmer

[jaspicosmer]

thank god im aromantic. i think everyone should get more aromantic

[jaspicosmer]

I'm done talking to cis men for the rest of my life

[jaspicosmer]

“Why are you scared of dating” I’m not scared of dating, I just haven’t found anyone’s company to be more enjoyable than my own. And also I don’t care

[jaspicosmer]

Wow, y'all really just hate yourselves huh

Don't know why I fuckin bother

[jaspicosmer]

The ace community has a serious case of useless neoliberalism that's more invested in a pretense of harmlessness, assimilation, and maintaining status quo, rather than actual collective activism, and this is why the ace community is stagnant and cannot progress past tepid statements of validity and the same handful of social media posts repeatedly assuring everyone that "aces can be kinky and like sex", as if that is the most important thing the ace community has to say. We're not here to challenge rape culture , or ban conversion therapy, or tackle medicalized aphobia. Amatonomativity is fun and doesn't need to be subverted at all! Nope, just, "Don't worry! Some aces like sex!" over and over again, and allies patronizingly puppy-tilting their heads and saying, "Don't worry, you're valid!" and thinking that's the extent of what's required of them as allies.

[jaspicosmer]

My aromanticism is not a soft suffering waiting for you to shape it, lovingly, into something you can pity. I am not seeking your tender validation.

I do not need you to explain love to me.

Were we not hand fed the same dreams, the same wishes? Were we not given the same template, told to fill in the blanks with the same values? I've spent all my life being forced into the shape of someone like you.

I know what love is.

Let me explain lovelessness to you.

Let me press my hands deep into something you never questioned and let me break it open. Let me show you the rugged edges, the sharp teeth buried inside. If I bare my heart to you, will you see me as human?

My aromanticism is wrapped in bitter sharp barbed wire edges. You may lay your hands upon me but beware of shaping me.

[jaspicosmer]

Yknow what I'm bringing this up again, I've talked about how people only bring up sex/romance favorability as an excuse to ship fictional characters but thinking about it now, the aspec community is just as guilty of this because whenever it comes up it's ALWAYS on the topic of "is it okay to ship blorbo if they're canonically aroace" and not "hey maybe we should listen to sex/romance favorable people and try to understand their experiences better"

This community has an issue of only viewing certain parts of itself through the lense of fandom

[jaspicosmer]

youll go to restaurants with your friends of 10 years and accidentally stay until closing because youre so engrossed in one another, then wonder why societal expectations say you wont be happy until you find someone to be "more" than "just" friends with. maybe someday i'll find The One, but if you think im letting small talk with tinder dates get in the way of slipping back into hearts and minds that grew alongside mine until we were all us-shaped? well then. youre just another person who doesnt get me at all

[jaspicosmer]

there's a post where someone said "can you respect trans women who look like men" and someone responded something like "hell yeah I love people who fuck with gender!" and like... yeah that's cool, but in a lot of spaces "trans woman who looks like a man" is a lot less likely to be someone who is intentionally comfortably presenting masculine, and a lot more likely to be a girl who hasn't started transition, or can't safely, or just didn't or couldn't put in the effort to pass as fem today, and a lot of them will just look like schlubby dudes and not a radically presenting queer person. and you should be able to respect that.

[jaspicosmer]

“No Ace Rep” Rant and Asexual Rep Finding Resources

Time to be an asshole on main but the statement “there’s no ace rep :(” is false. Actually there’s a decent amount of ace representation you’re just lazy and refuse to actually look for it.

You sit on your ass and wait for it to be served up to you on the Netflix discover page or tiktok algorithm and if it isn’t plastered in your face then it doesn’t exist.

There’s way more ace shit out there If you only gave a damn. If the only ace thing you know about is Loveless/Todd Bojack Horseman/PSA Girl from sex education/fucking headcanons that’s bad actually. You don’t have the right to disregard and disrespect the works of artists and creators giving ace rep and insist what they’re doing doesn’t exist and claim a God Damn Hunger Games headcanon as “the only ace rep there is uwu”(this is not exaggerated a recent panel on asexual representation not only spread the no rep lie but brought up a Katniss headcanon as ace rep we are so COOKED it's not even funny)

The amount of ace rep in books and podcasts will blow your minds. There's so much diversity in ace characters it's astounding. Trust me if you want alloromantic/grey/demi/favourable rep it’s out there you just have to read a damn book! An ace character isn’t “bad representation” because they’re repulsed/aroace, Loveless isn’t the only ace book that exists!

Yes, compared to basically almost every other queer identity (i say almost because trans people are shafted too) our representation especially mainstream representation is very minuscule. And we should be clamouring for more aces(especially a main characters!) in TV, movies and Games. But did you know there’s at least two movies with textually asexual main characters? They’re: Selah and The Spades & Something In the Dirt. Both vastly different films with differing themes tones setting.

The real issue with ace rep isn’t that “it doesn’t exist” but rather it’s discoverability a lot of it is lowkey or indie or if mainstream isn’t advertised as having ace representation and so aces have do the work to find and promote these things.

Another issue is that it’s imo pretty boring. What gets promoted is mostly kids/teenagers(YA or teen dramas) or on the cozy sweet side which don't interest me at all. Not that there aren’t things with fully grown adult aces or Morally grey characters but for some reason the community primarily props up YA and cozy stuff.

But I’ve given yall enough lashings so I’m gonna be nice and attach resources and people who regularly discuss ace rep in media:

u/ohmage_resistance and u/recchai : reddit users who review and discuss ace/aro rep in books(and occasionally podcasts) have done multiple all ace/aro fantasy book bingos here’s a Big list of ace books they put together

Claudie Arseneault/clh2oars on bluesky: an aroace author of aro/ace platonic queer Fantasy fiction she promotes a lot of other ace authors works too

S.L. Dove Cooper/dovelynnwriter on bluesky: Demi author of ace/aro sff also writer essays on asexual representation in literature

The aroace database :searchable database of ace/aro characters limited to books and not as up to date

@aroaessidhe here on tumblr reviews and makes fan art of a lot of queer books pays special attention to ace/aro books even has an ace book database.

Kristīne Vītola: user on goodreads who keeps track of ace/aro books her main shelves for this are ace/aro MCs and ace/aro SCs plus other smaller shelves

@aspeccharactersoftheday here on tumblr and goodreads, their goodreads is limited to books but the tumblr account chronicles ace/aro characters in all sorts of media. Also posts headcanons so for canon rep check the canon aspec tag

The yearly Ace Books List on Goodreads where community members list out the ace books (that they know of) coming out in that year

Ace Rep! list of podcasts with ace MCs or SCs

The Ace Couple on YouTube and Spotify: Longform podcast hosted by a married ace couple that discuss all sorts of things related to asexualilty occasionally do deepdives/reviews of media with ace characters.

don't really know if the people are okay with being tagged out of the blue so I'll untag if asked

[jaspicosmer]

i love media where characters are (violently) obsessed with each other and never kiss or have sex. this definitely has nothing to do with me being aroace

[jaspicosmer]

Ooooooooh you wanna interpret that fictional character as aromantic because there is subtext that would actually back that up and aromanticism would also add another layer to their character and would make so much more sense oooooooooooooooooh🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥🍥

[jaspicosmer]

"marriage is the ONLY way to get these protections" "there is NO WAY to hack a legal arrangement to cover everything that marriage grants" "kiddos you don't remember what it was like before we could get married, we finally got rights because we could get married" Okay But You Recognize Why That's Bad, Right. Like that is really, really bad that you have to enter a specific type of relationship to get legal rights. That is A Problem. You recognize that that is Not A Good Thing, Right

[jaspicosmer]

Yeah, aces can have sex! Congratulations on figuring out that labels don't dictate behavior, they describe it. But do you ever consider that even aces who have sex don't always have happy-sparkly-sunshiney relationships with sex?

Have you considered how your rhetoric might sound to an ace person who sexually self-harms?

Have you considered how your rhetoric might affect ace people with OCD compulsions related to sexuality or sexual activity?

Have you considered that some ace people who have sex only do so because they're convinced that they won't be worth anything unless they do? How does this interact with your discussion of "doing it for your partner"?

Have you considered how your rhetoric affects fraysexual people who are already made to feel insecure about the fact that lessening sexual interest is part of how their relationships mature over time?

Have you considered that we are a disproportionately sexually traumatized population and often have difficulty setting sexual boundaries because of it?

I don't think you have, no. I think you see an ace person having sex and automatically think their relationship with sex is fun, happy, and empowering even when it's obviously not.

I think if you people actually gave a shit about consent, your advocacy for aces who choose to be sexually active would be less about reminding them that they can have sex and more about helping them learn how to make sure their experience with sex, if they're going to have one at all, is beneficial to them.

[jaspicosmer]

Sex positivity is wonderful, but do NOT let it slip into acephobia, especially against sex repulsed aces. Sex isn't mandatory, engaging with sexual content isn't mandatory. Sex is, inherently, a morally neutral thing, and it should neither be eradicated or enforced

[jaspicosmer]

"Perverts are the creative ones no more purity!" Funfact sfw acespec artists can create amazing stuff too lmao

[jaspicosmer]

Queering The Map: Apec discoveries

Some happy, some sad